


Modern Romance

by withered



Series: Roses (by another name) [10]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternative Universe - No shinigami, Developing Relationship, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Inoue Bashing, Long-Distance Relationship, Male-Female Friendship, Putting it out there now, Temporary, Text Messages, mention of past abusive relationship, sibling relationships, swapped phones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-07-29 04:03:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 25,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16256282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withered/pseuds/withered
Summary: College did not prepare Ichigo for what happens when you accidentally swap phones with someone. Ending up in a long-distance fake-relationship definitely hadn't crossed his mind until then.





	1. Chapter 1

 

 

 

 _Guess who's a giant nerd?  
_  Email attachment: Exam results for Kurosaki Ichigo

 _Both of us  
_ Email attachment: Exam Results for Kuchiki Rukia

_!!_

_Don't act so surprised_  
_It's been two weeks and your alarms still go off at Fuck Off o'clock, so you can study_  
_Which_  
_What the fuck_  
_Who functions at 3am to go over case files?_

 _Witches_  
_And it isn't my fault that you keep forgetting to shut them off_  
 _Like you said, it's been two weeks_

_Your phone is confusing_

_Kurosaki_  
 _Kurosaki_  
_We have the same phone_  
_Or did you forget how we're even talking right now?_

Ichigo snorts.

Not likely. Not when Yuzu kept insisting that she'd seen this in a K-drama once, and Karin had rolled her eyes and said something along the lines of _, "Tinder being an easier way to meet girls_."

While he has no doubt that the app works – Keigo's a self-proclaimed expert – it's isn't like Ichigo needs the help.

Even Ishida admitted that there's something about Ichigo that (bafflingly) appeals to the female population of the student body, what with his "bad boy with a sensitive soul" reputation. Which he'd still like to contest, actually.

The "bad boy" thing, he got; he went through high school miscast as a delinquent because of his hair. And  _okay_ , he's attached to the leather jacket,  _so what?_

But his apparently "sensitive" soul? A work of fiction.

Karin agrees. He has no soul.

_Hate to break it to you, but your phone is cursed_

_Just because you don't know how to work phone settings does not mean it's cursed_

_It did that thing where it switched off and restarted for no reason_  
_And I'm pretty sure your battery's about ten years late for a replacement_  
_It's on constant life support as we speak_  
_It's basically a landline, Kuchiki_

_You're always at home anyway, I don't see how that's a problem_

_I could have plans_

_Oh really, such as?_

He scowls.

They've barely known each other a full two weeks and Rukia already has him pegged.

 _You're annoying as hell_  
_You realize that until we swap our phones back, we're basically co-owners, right?_  
_Your possessed phone is literally all I have to connect with the world_

 _It isn't my fault you live in the middle of nowhere, Grumpy_  
_We could've swapped phones as soon as you realized_  
_But no_

 _In my defense, your phone's shitty battery life has been a problem since Day 1_  
_I woke up, and it was off and I had a train to catch_  
_How the hell have you been manging so long with this shitty phone?_

_How dare you say that about Chappy?!_

His amusement is cut short when the table jostled, and he startled, looking at Tatsuki sitting across from him, her brow arched in an unimpressed look. "You do know the whole point of meeting up for coffee is actually drinking coffee, right?"

"Drinking," he repeats empathetically, hiding his disgust at the lukewarm tar, but feeling Tatsuki's judgment regardless. "Sorry…"

She rolls her eyes. "If I knew you were going to be on your phone the whole time, I would've just texted you."

"Sorry," Ichigo repeats. Soulless or not, his mother didn't raise an asshole. Setting the device aside and turning his attention to his best friend, he balanced the mug of cold coffee in one hand before lifting it in a mock toast.

Tatsuki rolls her eyes again, fondly exasperated. "So, who is she?"

"Who…?"

"The person who's got you so occupied with your phone," she says. "You don't ever pay that much attention to your phone. Hell, with how long it takes for you to reply to messages, I was starting to think you didn't even know how to use it."

"It's not -"

"You brought your charger out with you, Ichigo. You're sitting in the sunny spot because it's closer to the plug," she pointed out, eyes glinting, nose attuned to the smell of blood in the water. "I don't even think your phone's ever gone flat before."

"Now you're just being dramatic."

"Am I, am I really?" Her tone (and eyebrows) say otherwise.

Before he can even consider telling her the truth – how his phone had been swapped with a girl he hadn't even seen when he went for a late-night drink with Chad at Black Cat. How originally, they only got to talking for the sole purpose of swapping their phones back, and then relaying text messages to one another, to just – talking whenever for whatever for two weeks, he's interrupted by a cheery, "Kurosaki-kun!"

And let's just say, he's got a Pavlovian response because he cringes and feels his face tighten up.

Tatsuki is of a similar mind and is more willing to let her displeasure show.

At least with her presence, Inoue hesitates.

They had a falling out of sorts two years ago and whatever went down, must've been huge because they haven't been in the same vicinity since Inoue's transfer to Tokyo University, and whatever it was, Tatsuki wasn't willing to let it be water under the bridge, time and distance be damned.

Inoue, at least, seems to know that as she hovered uncertainly before their table.

For longer than necessary, the silence stretched until even the customers around them started to shift in discomfort.

Ichigo bit back a sigh. "Hey, Inoue."

She perks up almost immediately, turning just enough that she had her back to Tatsuki. A move that was doing a considerable number on Tatsuki's patience as her scowl darkened. "I didn't know you decided to go home for the break!"

"Uh, yeah, always do," he said, shooting Tatsuki a look which she returned albeit empty of any actual meaning except to express her annoyance. "Not much to do on campus."

"Oh, I know what you mean! I stayed for a week and there wasn't anything fun to do at all! Actually…I," she began to fiddle, pressing her pointer fingers against one another, cheeks going red. "I wanted to  _see you_."

He cleared his throat, managing an awkward smile. "Well uh, here I am?"

Fuck.

Ichigo had successfully avoided Inoue ever since he found out about her crush on him in high school, back in a ninth-grade game of spin-the-bottle.

He'd even managed to avoid her in university, something he clearly needed to do after Urahara casually mentioned that Inoue transferred out of Karakura Tech purely to be with him which was several layers of creepy he really didn't want to get into.

Ichigo implied to her in the past (when he couldn't avoid their interactions) that he wasn't interested in her, and she hadn't paid that much attention except to smile inanely.

Karin had even declared that he was gay in a bid to get rid of Inoue when she showed up at the clinic with a "sprain", but even that hadn't deterred her.

Despite Inoue's attempts to the contrary, she had yet to openly ask him out. Hopefully, this was the Hail Mary he needed to be done with her attention by getting to actually turn her down instead of just implying it to her, but from the look on Tatsuki's face, Ichigo highly doubted it.

Inwardly, he sighs.

Great.

He still has five weeks left before he had to go back to campus, and Karakura was a small town. The chances of Inoue wearing him down were pretty high once that dam broke, and then even his dad would hear about it – and god, Ichigo really didn't need to deal with _that_.

Unaware of the dread Ichigo was ready to drown in, Inoue's smile only turned soft stirring the discomfort in his stomach as she nodded and took a step forward. "Right, and well, I wanted to ask you if you want to go out with m– "

The loud vibration of Rukia's phone blessedly cut her off, and even Tatsuki huffed out a breath. Passing Inoue a vaguely apologetic look, he picked up, getting Rukia's voice on full volume, "Hey babe."

Inoue's face fell, and Ichigo had never been more relieved.

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

_How serious is this?_

_Well, my brother knows (obviously) which means the rest of my family will know, and these losers are part of the law community in Seireitei so…I kind of need this to go on until the end of spring break when I can ditch everyone for campus_

_Same_

_Good, I'm glad we're in agreement  
Who else knows about the phone-swap thing?_

_My sisters, but they're convinced I stole it to keep you talking to me_

_Lol  
is that necessary?_

_That I need to essentially steal someone's phone to keep in contact with them because I just lack that much game? I'm offended_

_That it's a nugget of truth or…_

_You're a shitty girlfriend_

_Excuse me, you're the one who only wanted us to be official because of another girl._  
_Which_  
 _What the hell?_  
 _Are you telling me_  
 _That she could've worn you down_  
 _Into a relationship_  
 _And possibly a marriage_  
 _if you didn't play along with me?_

 _I don't ever want to think that far_  
_but the possibility exists_  
 _She's persistent_  
 _And potentially delusional_

_And let me guess, you would've been too chicken shit to dump her?_

_I'm pretty sure she'd still think we're together anyway_  
_Karin tried to convince her I didn't play for her team_  
 _But apparently, she winked and told her that I just needed the right girl_

 _Oh_  
_Oh wow_  
 _That's…so many levels of gross_  
 _You couldn't even ghost her?_  
 _I do have your phone_  
 _I could just as easily ignore her_

 _That'd be a shitty thing to do_  
_Also_  
 _She'd probably end up spamming you with messages and phone calls_  
 _And then you'd be pissed at me_

 _Too polite to ghost_ _**and** _ _scared of someone that's probably half your size?  
Well thank god I swapped phones with someone decent_

As she watched the epilepsies bubble with his next text, she waited to hear how Ichigo would inflate his apparent decency as a selling point of his virtue, as she'd seen many a man do, but instead, he replied:

 _I'm not an idiot_  
_Whether you're a midget or not_  
 _I'm not poking that bear_

_I will legit punch you in the dick_

_Exactly  
I'm not getting on your bad side, Kuchiki_

Rukia huffed out a laugh.

If only everyone could be as wise.

Or, in her brother's case, not be a raging asshole.

She threw him a smile like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, even as he looked about thirty seconds away from death glaring her out of existence.

From the corner of her eye, the older of the two men her brother had been awful enough to arrange for her to meet at what was supposed to be a discussion on when she would start her associate's program over the spring break, opened his mouth. Considering all that had previously come out of it was the kind of condescension expected of someone who didn't see her as his equal, Rukia immediately nope-ed out of the conversation.

 _Wise move_  
_You should tell these dorks while you're at it_  
 _They'll probably listen to you_  
 _Which disgusts me greatly_

 _Don't be like that_  
_I can be good with words_  
 _Me, brute._  
 _Them, shark meat_.

 _I'm downright articulate, that isn't the point_  
_And you're goddamn right they're shark meat_  
 _What the fuck_  
 _Arranging a meeting to become an associate at Riku-Yamada during my break instead of at Kuchiki-Hitsugaya and not even tell me why?_  
 _And then have to listen to this asshat belittle me because apparently, I won't be able to "handle" the workload with my ladylike sensibilities?_  
 _And my brother letting this happen at all?_  
 _What kind of gross twilight zone did I enter into?_

_Yeah, you're definitely scary  
What were they thinking_

_…why can I tell that you're being sarcastic?_

_because I got distracted by your lock screen during your rant  
Chappy the Bunny, really?_

_I can be a scary ass law student_  
_And a fan of cute cartoons_  
 _Focus_  
 _I'm upset_  
 _It's your job to listen to me_

_Yeah, I still can't believe that became a thing  
What were the odds that we both needed a person at the exact same time?_

_You're the statistics major, Kurosaki  
I'm just glad you needed me as much as I needed you_

She'd definitely taken a chance at calling him.

Not that calling Ichigo had been her intention.

Even though she'd had Ichigo's phone for almost two weeks, she still forgot that it wasn't her phone currently in her hands.

Her first instinct had been to call Rangiku who was generally the last person she'd talked to and the most recent in her call logs  _on her phone_.

Rangiku would already be on board to play whatever Rukia needed, and after years of playing each other's "emergency contact" during shitty first dates and "significant other" in awkward encounters such as this – Rukia figured that at most she'd deal with the Senior and Junior Riku being homophobic twats.

After three years of the same "exit strategy", Byakuya knew better than to express any kind of reaction to his sister covertly "calling a friend".

Of course, that had been before Ichigo.

And now brother dearest looked like he was on the verge of an aneurysm.

Serves him right.

_Aren't you supposed to be at this lunch?_

_I am_

_Texting at the table, Kuchiki?_

_It's that or I rip Riku Junior's arm out of its socket and beat him with it  
If his hand doesn't move off my knee in the next twenty seconds I'm gonna lose it_

Surprisingly enough, about a minute later, it wasn't Rukia that got up from the middle of lunch, but her brother.

"I think we'll be leaving now."

"Byakuya, dear boy, surely not. We haven't even gotten through the second course yet," Riku Senior despaired.

"Yes, well, the disrespect being shown to my sister has severely ruined my appetite." And at the cold look down at the hand that was still trying to edge its way up Rukia's skirt, Riku Junior turned as white as a ghost and only barely spluttered a reply before Byakuya nodded almost infinitesimal at her.

Rukia hadn't even the second to marvel how her brother had known before she smiled blandly, flicked his hand off her person and stood.

The siblings departed without a proper goodbye, and as they waited in the foyer of the restaurant for their town car to pull up, Rukia demanded, "What the hell was that?"

"You texted me."

The exact message she'd just sent to Ichigo stared back at her from the screen of her brother's phone, and though she thought for a second how relieved she was that she wasn't required to play nice for the rest of lunch, that wasn't what she meant. "Why did you want me to meet them? Do you really think I can't handle working for the firm?"

"No, of course not," her brother intoned as their car rolled to a stop and their driver got out to open the door. "I just thought you'd enjoy meeting the firm we'd be dissolving during your spring break."

As they settled in the back seat, Rukia mood gradually improving now that that mess had been sorted out, her brother decided to burst her bubble and trail awkwardly, "So, you have a boyfriend."

Mentally, she exhaled,  _haven't I been punished enough?  
_

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

 

 

_You've got a lot of nerve messaging my brother pretending to be me_

_It worked though, didn't it?_

_All you know of him was that he made me sit with two misogynistic assholes for almost two hours  
What made you think he was going to react well to me wanting to put a violent and gruesome end to lunch?_

_Because_  
 _You love the hell out of your brother if your previous chats are any indication_  
 _And while I can't speak for his decency as a human being_  
 _As a decent enough older brother myself_  
 _I have it on good authority that he wouldn't brush off other people treating you like shit in from of him_  
 _Also_  
 _I assume he wouldn't give up blackmail for nothing_  
Screenshot sent: Rukia in a kindergarten picture with "Oniisama's" caption, "deleted my copy" visible from the message he sent to Rukia's phone.

Despite how old the picture had to be, the quality was fantastic and there was no mistaking the blue eyes Ichigo had already glimpsed in the few selfies Rukia posted on Instagram.

Her older brother had sent the throwback half-way through Rukia's surprise call wherein the pair of them managed to make the appropriate noises regarding their fake-relationship until their audience was sufficiently convinced that there was an actual person on the other end.

Or at least in his case, convinced enough that Inoue had left, the bell by the coffee shop door ringing in the wake of her exit to the tone of Tatsuki's cackling.

 _Fuck.  
Well there go my plans to make him sweat for putting me through that without telling me the reason  
_Ichigo snickered. Karin and Rukia were never allowed to meet. Ever.  
 _Delete that picture immediately_

_But Rukia  
It's #TBT_

_I swear to god, Kurosaki_

_You're pretty active on Instagram, babe  
It would be pretty suspicious if you didn't post anything for the next five weeks, wouldn't it? Its already raising flags that you haven't posted anything in a while…_

Even two weeks down the line, and Rukia's account was still getting activity, in particular, being tagged in the comments or via DM by @ **ash-kitten**  and @ **actually-nanao**  about anything and everything ranging from cute dogs to food to memes to funny videos to nail colors to feminist posts. Fortunately, Rukia's friends didn't expect much more from him pretending to be her, only that he/she had seen the tag and reacted accordingly.

Ichigo still hadn't figured out if he was relieved or not that Rukia's profile was set on private because that certainly didn't stop the people attempting to slide in her DMs.

At the very least, he was spared seeing the excessive use of flame emojis on Rukia's few selfies.

"You're frowning again."

"Do you really put up with this?"

"Put up with what?" Karin asked, flicking the page of her sports magazine in disinterest.

"This," Ichigo repeated, waving Rukia's phone. "All these losers sending you shitty come-ons?"

"Well, what did you expect, Rukia's cute. Obviously, other people would notice that," his sister shrugged off.

"You could add your name to her profile," Yuzu suggested from the kitchen.

"A bit presumptuous, don't you think?" Karin observed. "Besides, having a boyfriend or person doesn't stop some guys from trying to slide into the DMs anyway. One of the guys on the soccer team has a thing for girls that are taken, apparently, it adds a layer of challenge to the chase." Her exaggerated eye-roll said exactly what she thought about that.

Yuzu's scrunched up expression echoed the sentiment. "Men are gross."

Ichigo only huffed, the message of some random guy trying to get Rukia's phone number despite having no reason besides, "I have a feeling you and I would vibe really well together" staring at him from the screen of Rukia's phone. God, did guys actually think that would work?

Shit, was Ichigo going to have to deliver that line to her?

Would it  _actually_ work?

"I wonder if that guy owns clothes, how many shirtless selfies do you even need?" Yuzu asked, looking over Ichigo's shoulder. Karin snorted.

Decision made: @ **cam-rams**  was never going to stand a chance. With not a hint of smugness, Ichigo deleted the message request just as Rukia replied,

 _Do._  
Not.  
 _Or I will accept Inoue's follow and DM requests_

He paled a little.

_You wouldn't._

_Oh, honey_   
_It takes about six hours to get from Karakura to Seireitei_   
_What makes you think you can stop me?_

Yeah, cam-rams wouldn't stand a chance in hell, he smirked.

_Fine  
I can't believe I'm scared of someone with a bowl cut_

Rukia's brother may have been willing to give up the picture, but he certainly wasn't. He didn't even care that she'd probably get the email notification saying that he'd sent himself the picture from her phone.

All the better to put the subject line as "when it was still appropriate for Rukia to be in a Chappy phase".

She replied back from his email account with a middle finger.

_Stoooop_   
_I was six_   
_I had no choice_

_But did you cut your own bangs?_

_I hate you_   
_Of all the assholes I could've accidentally swapped phones with_   
_I get you_   
_At least my hair grew back_   
_Yours will be traffic cone orange forever_

He snorted.

_Low blow  
My mom gave that to me_

_Hers was prettier,_ she eventually replied.

_Hey, not everyone's as pretty as my mom_

_Clearly  
She rocked the cute boho-vibe in the throwbacks you posted  
And you're all  
_Photo attachment: Ichigo, standing outside Black Cat, scowling at someone out of the camera's view. The caption Rukia sends reads, "Grumpy with a leather jacket"  
_I think I'll show this to my brother_  
 _He'll love that I'm with a delinquent_

_Don't be fooled_   
_I'm actually fragile_   
_The leather jacket and the scowl is all an illusion_   
_I quote Shakespeare_

_I know_   
_I have your phone, remember?_   
_I know everything_

_Sounds ominous, want to share with the class?_

_Well Inoue's following your Instagram with a fake account_

He stares at the message for a solid minute.

The phone rang twice before, he demands without so much as a greeting, "What?"

"Hey, babe."

"Rukia, what the hell."

"Arisawa has two accounts which I found strange since she's barely using the one," Rukia says conversationally.

"How did you…"

"The first account likes strictly Kurosaki content, yours and your sisters. I figured even if you and Arisawa were close, she wouldn't be  _that_ invested in what you post. Unless you have that kind of relationship?" And though Ichigo didn't know Rukia that well, he swore he could hear a tinge of concern – like maybe he'd been secretly harboring feelings for his childhood friend and just –  _no._

"God, no. She's my neighbor. She sees me enough." He rubs at his mouth.

Great, it turns out Inoue is definitely a few lines short of a soliloquy. "Well, fuck. I'm gonna need you to post a selfie or something then if she's snooping on my profile with someone else's account…no doubt she's looking for you to not-actually-exist."

"No kidding," she mutters. "Well, what am I supposed to post, we don't exactly have pictures together."

"Did you take any from Black Cat?"

"I don't know, you have my phone," she reminds patiently amused.

"Right...right."

"Send me the picture you want to post, and you can post the one I sent of you – you know, Grumpy with a leather jacket."

"Is that my caption?"

"Get creative. Oh, and we should probably follow each other on Instagram too, just to cover all our bases in case she looks for me in your follows."

"Won't she see?"

Rukia hums. "She hasn't liked anything for an hour now. Get one of your sisters to post something and I'll double check, but if she doesn't like it within the minute, she's not online. I'll bury the follow with random likes and follow a bunch of random people on your explore page."

He runs a hand through his hair. "I don't know if I should be impressed or concerned…" Glancing over his shoulder, he caught Yuzu taking a picture of her finished cupcakes before tapping away at her phone.

"Yuzu's posting something now, do you see it?"

There was a pause, and then, "Yeah, it doesn't look like Inoue's online to like it. I'm sending you a follow now."

The notification dinged in his ear. "Alright, I'll talk to you in a sec."

After accepting the follow from his Instagram account, he followed back before opening Rukia's gallery for a picture, momentarily amazed that his life became this complicated.

Not for the first time, Ichigo thought,  _I fucking hate technology._

 


	4. Chapter 4

_You're an old man_

_I resent that_

_It explains so much though_

_?_

_You had to look up how to work your phone, Ichigo_

_In my defense I've never gotten this model before_

_Ichigo_  
_You looked up how to change your wallpaper settings_  
_But not how to put a lock screen_

_It_  
_Was_  
_A_  
_New_  
_Phone_

_Was your previous phone a Nokia brick?_

_I refuse to dignify that with a response_ then, _Why do you know this?_

_That you've had the equivalent of a walkie-talkie since recently_  
_or that you're the oldest millennial in college?_  
_Your recent Google search history for one_  
_Your phone navigation history for another_

What a wealth of information that was.

While Ichigo was pretty good about keeping his email inbox in order and professional, Rukia had mentally and emotionally prepared herself for the inevitable reminder that he was still a man when she chose to dig around the other contents of the phone. It had initially been an innocent move on her part to try and figure out who's phone was in her possession (and why the hell the owner hadn't seen fit to lock the device at all), but now had been something she'd done purely out of interest.

Rukia could admit to being disappointed to find nothing but Wikipedia research spirals, PDFs of textbooks he couldn't afford a physical copy of, How-Tos in adulting (" _How do I get a bank statement?", "How to replace a carbonator?", "What to wear for an interview?", "How to get out of a date without being an ass?")_ and an attempt to find recipes for the sparse ingredients Ichigo probably had in his fridge.

(Though she'd been assured by Rangiku that Ichigo probably kept his porn on his laptop for quality purposes, like an adult.)

The number of apps on his phone were few and far between besides, consisting of games mostly, and applications like Spotify, Uber, Seamless, Netflix and a few photo editing apps, though his photo gallery was really slim, it made sense when she put into account the kind of pictures Ichigo posted on Instagram.

The messaging and social media apps he had, though, besides the recent likes he was getting from Rukia's recent foray into his Instagram account, had next to zero activity.

Probably because he was home for the break considering the recent messages that weren't from Rukia's phone had been from Ichigo's sisters and dad.

His text messages too were purely subscriptions to account for purchases made with his card as well as specials for takeaway places near the university.

Any notes he kept on his phone was copied texts of web links, song lyrics he didn't know the titles of, his latest grocery list, and a reminder to replace a plug that wasn't working.

For someone who apparently had their whole lives on their phone, Ichigo didn't have much of a life.

_Please tell me this phone is just super new,_ she sends, _because I'm kind of worried about you_

Though, she should talk.

The only reason she'd been anxious about her phone had been purely for sentimental reasons rather than practical ones.

_I hate you_

_Sure, you do, boo,_ she retorts as another  _heart_ notification popped up from the picture she posted on his Instagram. _You're just jealous that your phone is getting all the usage it deserves_

_While I have to stand the company of your shitty phone which continues to switch on and off, by the way  
I'm this close to taking it in for a new battery_

_I'll pay you back if you do_  
_I've been meaning to replace it_  
_But you know, exams and all_

_Rukia, your phone screen is cracked, and it's chipped to hell in at least eight different places  
Be honest, did you throw it in a blender?_

_No  
I'm just clumsy_

_Right._

Though Rukia doubted she'd ever physically met Ichigo or knew him longer than the two-odd weeks that had passed since they swapped phones, she could practically hear his snort of disbelief.

"Is that weird?" she found herself asking aloud, "That we know each other without really knowing each other?"

Rangiku waves off. "It's like being on a marathon one-night stand. You're probably never going to know what their relationship is with their parents or hell, how they like their coffee, but you'll know where they're ticklish, what makes them squirm, what makes them moan, and what makes them  _scream_."

From her place leaning against the headboard by the pillows, Nanao shot her an unimpressed look. "Why does everything have to be about sex for you?"

"Because sex is awesome," Rangiku says with a wink. "Don't get pouty, Nana-chan, if you'd just say yes to whatshisface, I'm he'd be glad to show you."

Rukia snorts as they got into the same tired argument that made up their three years of friendship and turns her attention back to Ichigo's phone in her hands.

Rangiku was right, sex analogy aside.

She'd never know what Ichigo liked to order at a Starbucks or what his feelings were towards his dad. But she did know what playlists he favored on Spotify, what he recently bought on Amazon (the Season 4 boxset of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, a book on Greek mythology, and novelty socks) and what takeout place he preferred thanks to his history on Seamless (some hole in the wall ramen place near Rukia's apartment in Tokyo that she herself frequented, oddly enough).

Rukia could only imagine what Ichigo had ascertained from his own snooping – regardless of her phone's attempts to distract him.

While by his admission, Ichigo's phone was new, Rukia had  _two_ _years_ with hers.

Essentially, he was holding two years of her life in the palm of his hands.

Even with how often she fiddled with the device, she couldn't remember what she kept in it – what song would pop on her Most Played, where she last went with Uber or what she last searched on Google.

He'd know.

He'd read her emails, relayed messages to her, looked through her photo gallery to post on Instagram for her.

Ichigo would know.

What could it hurt if he knew about this?

_The phone looks the way it does because I was in a car accident_  
_It was a long time ago_  
_I just_  
_haven't gotten around to trying to fix it_

There were false starts with his reply, and eventually nothing. She took a breath.

In way of intimacy, there wasn't much different to the one-night-stand metaphor, there was a stranger out there with some of her secrets already, what was the harm in giving him more?

_Physically I was okay_   
_Emotionally not so much_

The message double ticked, indicating it was received and then turned blue to denote that it had been read, and then,

_I only got a new phone because my old one got stolen  
Karin said if I got something in this century, I wouldn't lose any of the pictures if I set up the Cloud_

She stares at the screen uncomprehending, before it blinked out in the lapse of inactivity, a single picture popping up of what she recognized as his mom.

_I set up the Cloud, you change my battery?_

She exhales.

_Deal_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One day I'll figure out how to make fake instagram posts, and when that day comes, I'll update the fic with them xD  
> If you have any requests about what you'd like to see in future chapters, feel free to leave me a line here or on [ tumblr](everything-withered.tumblr.com)


	5. Chapter 5

He was woken at half-past five to a kick to the face, as he does when his father's on one of his tirades.

("A girlfriend, my son? And I didn't know? You're so rude! So thoughtless! Karin says she's cute, how did you convince her to go out with you?")

He almost misses Rukia's ass o'clock alarms.

With sleep officially off the table, and Karin suspiciously absent from the house, Ichigo finds himself heading for the public pool, admitting to himself that the early hour has its perks.

Lacking his father's annoying presence is one of those. But so is the lack of kids insisting on cannon-balling right in the middle of his laps.

When Rukia's phone rings, his muscles are pleasantly loosened and he's weighing the pros and cons of going back to bed when he gets home.

He doesn't think much of why the phone is ringing.

No one actually calls Rukia, preferring to text or email to get a hold of her, something they share regardless of Rukia's more active presence on social media.

He just assumes it's Rukia herself.

He's wrong.

Instead of the dark-haired girl, Ichigo knows Rukia is, a shirt stretched tight across an impressive rack greets him instead. Before he can decline the call in alarm, she declares, "Oh ho! Well, look who we have here!"

Vaguely, Ichigo notices Inoue appear in the peripheral of his vision, and he turns away with a  _what-the-fuck_  to the heavens as slightly manic, he stutters, "I – could you – the phone's a little -"

She laughs,  _and that's definitely not Rukia_. "My, so shy! Is it possible Ru-chan has an actual unicorn for a boyfriend?"

"Ran," someone hisses loudly from her end of the line, and blessedly, the camera angle changes. For a second, Ichigo thinks it's Rukia herself, but her voice is still off, even if her hair color is right. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Chill, chill, Nanao-chan," Ran, waves off. "Just officially meeting our Rukia's main squeeze." Turning her attention back to him, Ichigo belatedly notes that she's beautiful, but from the cunning sparkle in her eye, entirely dangerous. Tatsuki has been in possession of that look since they were kids, and if anything, allowing himself to trustingly follow her lead was the reason his "delinquent" status wasn't entirely out of left field. "So, you're Ichigo!"

Removing his hand from his hair, careful not to get the phone wet, he says, "Uh, yeah, you are?"

"Ash-Cat," she supplies, shooting him a wink, and the Instagram handle makes him flush. God, Rukia mentioned that her best friend, Rangiku, was hornier than a teenage boy with uncapped internet, but seeing the kind of stuff Rangiku tagged Rukia in on Instagram was a whole different thing.

Ichigo was too comfortable in his masculinity to have a problem being constantly faced with shining six-pack abs and guys with bubble butts, but it definitely gave him pause enough to consider doing something other than binge-watch Netflix and eat his weight in Cheetos for the remainder of his break.

If he left the house every day for either a run or a swim (albeit at a normal hour) and emailed Chad about workouts he could do without gym equipment, well, it was his business.

"Y'know, usually I'd be giving you the fifth degree, what with you and Ru-chan dating and all, a new thing or not," Rangiku says. "But you were such a good sport about all the stuff I was sending you, I can't bring myself to be mad! Although," she pauses, arching her brow, "where are you that you're hanging out wet and shirtless like that?"

"Public pool," he answers. "Where's Rukia?"

"Oh, we were having a sleepover and she's still out."

"Not that you ever actually slept," Ichigo hears Nanao say somewhat spitefully.

"Well, I wasn't going to wake up early to talk to him," Rangiku retorts. "It's easier to not sleep than to wake up early!"

Ichigo snorts despite himself. "It's not that early."

"Spoken like a true, early morning gym rat, I'm shocked, truly. You should know that once Rukia's asleep she's practically dead. I should hope that isn't a deal breaker for you guys. I don't know if you're at the  _sleeping over_ stage yet but -"

There's a splutter from her end of the line, and Nanao's voice carries, "Byakuya-san, are you alright?"

Ichigo wants to slam his face into the wall, and from Rangiku's cackling, his reaction, as well as Byakuya's, was exactly what she was hoping for.

"But you know," Rangiku continues innocently, "I'd hate for a blossoming new love to be impeded by such trivial differences as when you're awake and when she isn't…"

"It's not," he says, and the memory of Rukia's three alarm clocks comes to mind when he thoughtlessly adds, "Besides, I know how to wake her up." And he doesn't think about the implications until it's Rangiku's turn to splutter.

The camera shakes and suddenly, Ichigo has a pair of angry eyebrows crinkled over grey eyes, trying to glare him into oblivion.

Before he can open his mouth, Byakuya declares, "You will not touch my sister."

"Grumpy, what are you doing!" Rangiku shrieks, and there's another camera scuffle. Vaguely, Ichigo prays they don't drop his phone, though more than 80% of his thought processes are dedicated to praying that Byakuya forgets this entire thing happened.

He can't tell if he's relieved or not that the call ends especially since with one crisis averted, he turns to be faced with another.

"Kurosaki-kun!"

Ichigo sighs. "Inoue."

She giggles. "I didn't know you swam! I just saw you in the pool and thought I'd come say hi!"

God, there should be a rule against being so perky at seven in the morning, even if he's feeling chipper enough from his swim, phone calls with Rukia's best friend and brother notwithstanding.

With it being summer break, the pool was overflowing by ten, and the Karakura national swim team had practice here at seven and he wasn't conscious enough not to begrudgingly submit to Tatsuki's bullying to try-out while he was in town. There were clear positives to getting up early, but to risk running into Inoue every day? Not worth it.

"You're really good," she continues, eyes sparkling, toe childishly stubbing at the ground as she peers up at him from beneath her lashes, "do you think you can help me get my breaststroke right?"

A cartoon devil version of Tatsuki pops up on his shoulder to mock, "What's the point, your breasts are practically flotation devices anyway!"

Ichigo grimaces against the impulse to snort. "Actually, I'm heading out."

"Oh!"

He nods absently with nothing else to say, holding strong against the awkward silence that arises for all of ten seconds before Inoue asks, "What are you up to today?"

"No plans," he answers honestly before cursing and internally contemplating slamming his head against the wall again when Inoue brightens.

"It's really hot, isn't it? We should go for milkshakes!"

Nervously, he tugs at his still-wet hair.

Whoever said waking up early and exercising is the perfect combination to start the day right, should be shot on sight.

He's never been more stressed out in his life.

"Sorry," he says, confident that his relief isn't obvious because the chance of Ichigo picking up the phone and  _it_   _being_   _Byakuya_ still exists, and he isn't quite ready to be talked off touching Rukia when he hasn't even done it yet.

Ichigo's heart has already been through enough stress as it is, and he swallows the static of panic as he accepts the video-call.

Blue eyes regard him sleepily as her voice, soft and sleep-warm murmurs, "Hey…"

For the first time this morning, Ichigo's heart catches. "Hi…"

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on my writing related [ichiruki](https://everything-withered.tumblr.com/tagged/ichiruki) content


	6. Chapter 6

 

 

“Did they wake you?” he asks quietly

Rukia rubs the sleep from her eyes and squints at him. “Nanao did, though their yelling in the kitchen certainly helped.”

“I assumed you were the one calling me, that’s the only reason I picked up,” he says, and even though she’s half awake, his sheepishness is hard to miss.

As is the fact that Ichigo is practically glistening, a small puddle of water gathering in the divot of his collarbone from its trail down his neck where his hair is still dripping.

He must be at the pool, she thinks absently, before, “You know what they say about ‘assume’, don’t you?” Yawning widely, she hugs her pillow tighter to herself with one arm while the other keeps his phone in her hand.  “How’d that work out for you, though? Did my brother threaten to disembowel you and wear your intestines as a scarf?”

“He hadn’t gotten to that part, no,” Ichigo drawls. “I’ll remember that when the twins bring someone home.”

“Don’t ever say I don’t give you anything,” she chirps, trying to curl back into a ball to escape the fingers of sunshine peeking through the blinds, groaning aloud, “I can’t believe this couldn’t wait.”

“You and me both,” he huffs.

Nuzzling into her pillow, she blinks at him. “Why so grumpy?”

“Have you met your family?”

She chuckles. “Just be glad Hisana isn’t around, she’s worse in a different way. Less murder, more tell-me-everything.” Suffice to say, her sister-in-law was not a fan of Rukia’s previous boyfriend. Then again, no one really was. “Sorry,” she adds, in a wince.

“It’s – it could’ve been worse. Although,” Ichigo huffs, “it would’ve helped to be more prepared, don’t you think? Maybe if you’d given me a head’s up?”

“In my defence I didn’t know they’d take my phone and call you, _I_ don’t even video call you.” That really should have been Ichigo’s first guess that it wasn’t her calling. Then again, he was usually too relaxed after his morning cardio that Rukia swore she could get away with dragging a dead body around the house, and he wouldn’t even notice.

“Sounds like we’re already on the rocks, babe, say it ain’t so.”

 “I don’t need to video call you to remember what you look like, idiot,” she snorts.

“But it’s all part of keeping a young relationship alive,” and if it weren’t for his exaggeratedly wide eyes, Rukia might have done something other than smirk.

“Like we don’t already talk every day?”

“Well what if I wanted to see your face?”

“You’ve got enough pictures of me.”

Ichigo sighs dramatically. “I’m trying to be romantic here.”

“It’s wasted on the sleep deprived.” At that, even he smiles, and shakes his head.

“How was it last night?”  

Rukia shrugs, readjusting herself so she was sitting against the headboard. “We drank wine. Rangiku tried to booty call her boyfriend while he was in the States. Nanao tried to call the TA for her government class that she’s been crushing on. The usual.”

“And you?”

“Sorry, babe, but my first love remains and always will remain, Family Law.” In fact, she’d fallen asleep reading one of the pro-bono case files her brother had handed her, in a thinly veiled attempt to keep her from ending up like Rangiku or Nanao. Not that any of the case particulars actually sunk in. Rukia was good, but even she was no match for Rangiku’s famous box wine.

“You’re breaking my heart, Kuchiki. Your brother will think I’m not making us worth your while.”

“Why, hoping to make a good impression, babe?”

“Well you already posted the dodgiest picture of me you could get,” he reminds with a roll of his eyes.

“It was artistic, I was following your lead,” she defends, though not even the pillow helps to suppress her laughter.

 It was probably for the best that Instagram let them access more than one account at a time. Rukia doubted she could quite pull off Ichigo’s wit via his comment section, and it seemed like the easiest thing to have their own accounts back, on top of each other’s.

“And in my defence," she was quick to add, "you were the one who decided to expose me for walking around barefoot. I mean, I was drunk, it was an executive decision not to twist my ankle!”

 

Ichigo’s expression is deadpan. “There could’ve been glass, Rukia, you could’ve cut yourself.”

Fortunately, despite his friends’ enthusiasm about a well-chosen picture of a night-out so many months ago that Rangiku hadn’t remembered taking it, none of his friends had tried to call him to demand who she was. Though, it helped that Ichigo was so flippant about her, and it was just their luck that they both went home alone the night their phones got swapped.

“And yet…”

He rolls his eyes, a smile curling at his lip almost reluctantly. “I promise to carry you next time.”

Before she can reply, the person lingering at his shoulder clears her throat, and Ichigo just barely manages to conceal his flinch. So, Rukia wasn’t the only one who’d forgotten about her. Then, to who Rukia assumes is Inoue, Ichigo attempts to excuse himself with a curt, “I gotta go.”

“Rude,” Rukia informs at the same time that the girl visibly deflates. “You’re not gonna introduce us, Strawberry-chan?”

He flashes the crazy eyes at her, the what-are-you-doing face, and it’s a miracle she doesn’t laugh before Inoue plasters herself more firmly at Ichigo’s arm and introduces herself, smile blindingly bright.

Even without the backstory Ichigo gave her, Rukia’s met Inoue’s type before, and suffice to say, she is not a fan.

“Oh, I see,” Rukia returns, smiling sweetly in return, “and how does my boyfriend know you?”

For a split second, Inoue hesitates, looks at Ichigo in askance before firmly declaring, “We’ve known each other a long time!”

“Really?” Rukia tilts her head in feigned surprise which she knows probably looks ridiculous considering she’s in a sleep shirt that’s too big and her hair is a mess. But if Hisana can terrify Byakuya-niisama with a smile, Rukia can do it too. “Well, I’m sure you know about the girl sending him overly suggestive pictures of herself on airdrop, then?”

Inoue flushes and opens her mouth wordlessly before Rukia’s barrels on, sounding perfectly apologetic, “It’s so embarrassing, don’t you think? I’d hate to come off so desperate…anyway, Ichigo thinks it might be someone from back home and – well, since you’ve known him for so long – I was wondering if you had any idea who it could be?”

If it were possible, Inoue’s brain would be escaping out of her ears while Ichigo’s jaw hangs slightly ajar.

“N-no, no idea whatsoever,” Inoue manages after several awkward seconds and then, “Erm, excuse me, Kurosaki-kun.”

One beat. Two.

“Was that too harsh?” Rukia asks belatedly.

“I think,” Ichigo began slowly, “I think I’m gonna keep you.”


	7. Chapter 7

 

 

Ichigo glares at the message as if hoping it’ll disappear from existence which it obviously doesn’t because technology doesn’t work that way.

Still, he tries, and still, Rukia’s phone continues to disappoint him.

The screen eventually blacks out due to lack of activity, and he clicks the volume button just to have something to do.

His scowl is enough to scare a nearby kid, and his blubbering is only halted by Tatsuki’s soothing.

Before he can blink, Rukia’s phone is snatched out of his hand, and his best friend is glaring at him, hip cocked, and brow arched, clearly unimpressed. “Do you mind explaining to me what your murder face is about? Because I know that one isn’t your default setting. What gives, Kurosaki?”

He wants to say ‘nothing’, but it isn’t.

It’s been bothering him since Rukia’s phone had pinged with a message, and it was neither from Rukia nor her friends or family, but some unknown number who identified themselves as Rukia’s ex.

He’d been reluctant to relay the message – purely because the vaguely threatening tone made his skin itch – and Rukia’s reaction hadn’t helped.

She hadn’t called or messaged him back since, and it was day three of radio silence.

Was it pathetic to feel rejected? No, no that wasn’t the right word. Asking to keep her was – it wasn’t that, she’d even joked back that he could, only if he pulls through with that promise to carry her around and – It wasn’t rejection, no.

Abandoned? Yeah, that was…that was closer, but no less ridiculous.

They’d only known each other for four weeks, and he hadn’t even met her face to face yet. It is pathetic, he decides, but still fights to get her phone back in his possession. A futile attempt, really, even with the added height and weight in his favor, Tatsuki is on the highest level of karate, and she easily puts him down.

Plus, she’s been well aware of his blind spots since they were paired together to spar at age six, and he’s never stood a chance, and never tried to again.

“Not until you spill your sins, Kurosaki,” she declares, waving Rukia’s phone mockingly. “What, did you fight with your girlfriend or something?”

“Or something,” he answers with a huff.

It wasn’t really a fight. She’d just – stopped talking to him. Was there a word for that?

“She ghosted you?!”

“What?”

“That’s what it means when someone spends time and energy and feelings getting to know you, and suddenly disappears,” Tatsuki explains, waving it off just as quickly. “That’s rough, I know you really like her.”

But she wouldn’t, Ichigo thought, he still had her phone after all.

Could Rukia really just leave him on _read_ and then only message him again once they were back on campus and ready to swap their phones back?

Unless she didn’t want hers back?

His phone was practically brand new while hers, new battery or not, still wasn’t in the best condition.

Would she just disappear from his life as quickly as she appeared in it?

“What happened?” Tatsuki asks, and with the karate class she was supervising dismissed for the day, she had all the time in the world for him.

Bar actually showing her the message though, Ichigo explains, “Her ex sent a message.”

Her brows knit together. “And?”

“And he wasn’t very happy to find out about me.”

Or, more accurately, he demanded to know _who that dipshit is_ , before spiraling into a tirade of who _Rukia thought_ _she was._

“He sounds like a jerk,” Tatsuki declares. “So, what, jealous ex is back in the picture and your girl’s running back?”

Ichigo didn’t think so, and said as much, “She isn’t the type.”

“Your thing is new, you might not know her as well as you think,” Tatsuki says carefully, tone consoling and apologetic in equal measures.

“Maybe,” he concedes, “but I know her enough.”

Rukia was the same girl who made it abundantly clear what she thougut of the jerks she had lunch with just two weeks before. Hell, she’s the same girl that’ll just as quickly bite her beloved brother’s head off before allowing him to disrespect her. There’s no way she’d take this guy’s shit.

Tatsuki considers him, probably cataloging the heavy clench in his jaw and the scowl on his face before she asks, voice steady and quiet, “What are you thinking?”

“I don’t know what to think…She hasn’t been online. She isn’t picking up. I don’t even know what I don’t know.”

“Did she block you?”

“No,” he says, running his hand through his hair. “Like I said, she’s just not online. My messages are going through but she hasn’t read any of them.”

And now that he thought about it, he hadn’t been recently tagged by Rangiku or Nanao even knowingly since…what was even happening?

“Yeah, but you’ve got a feeling, don’t you?”

He huffs out a breath through his nose, and admits, “Yeah…”

“Care to share with the class?”

 Ichigo grimaces, hopes it isn’t true and doesn’t speak in case somehow, by verbally putting it out there, he’ll make it the reason why Rukia’s gone AWOL on him.

She sighs. “Do you remember when you first left for Tokyo, you didn’t come home at all for almost a year.”

Blinking at her abrupt change in topic, Ichigo says nothing, which is enough prompting for her, though she smiles wanly and informs, “I was pretty pissed at you, you know. You were off doing the college thing, and I was stuck in this nowhere town hoping to get good enough to qualify for one of the national teams – hell, any national team.” She shakes her head. “Anyway, you remember how happy I was when you finally came home for the holidays?”

Vividly.

Ichigo had even physically prepared by wearing too many layers and hoping it would cushion his fall once Tatsuki steamrolled him. Though, she’d only hugged him and maybe cried a bit, which he’d thought at the time was because her broken arm had been between them and that _he was inadvertently hurting her and –_ and –

“Tatsuki…”

Another huff that sounds almost watery leaves her lips, and she won’t look at him as she says, “It’s why Inoue and I aren’t friends anymore which should tell you how messed up it was that even _she_ knew it was wrong.”

Ichigo can’t find anything appropriate to say back, which is just as well because Tatsuki adds, “Not that that was the only reason. She ignored the majority of the signs in favor of getting information on you, the ends justifying the means, I guess. And well – she brought you up one too many times around him, and he wasn’t too happy and…From the sounds of it, Rukia’s ex sounds pretty similar to mine.”

“He broke your arm,” Ichigo eventually says, and Tatsuki’s smile is awkward. “Yeah, well, even a lifetime of karate couldn’t protect me from a push down the stairs.”

Tentatively, he offers his hand to her, and she stares at it, before she accepts it, not even startling when he pulls her in for a one-armed hug and presses a kiss against her hair like he usually does with the twins whenever he says goodnight. “I’m sorry,” he says instead. “I should’ve been there.”

“Don’t blame yourself,” Tatsuki scolds, “I wasn’t…Inoue wasn’t the only reason I stopped talking to you as much that year. I-I let him isolate me and when I finally managed to get out of that relationship, I was actually glad that you weren’t there to see who I became…that I didn’t say or do something to you that made you stop being my friend.”

“Arisawa,” Ichigo begins, “if I can forgive you for tricking me into taking Inoue to that school dance that made her obsessed with me in the first place, I can forgive just about anything.”

She huffs again, and this time it sounds like a laugh.

“Are you…doing okay?” He ventures to ask, unsure if it would be welcome.

But Tatsuki smiles slightly. “I'm still in therapy, but…yeah, better,” she admits. “Him leaving town helped.”

 “I’m sorry about what you went through...”

She squeezes him back. “Me too. And, you know…about Rukia…”

Untangling from him, Tatsuki looks him properly in the eye. “If it is what you think it is, just…give her space. She’ll let you know when it’s okay again. And if she never does…”

Then, she’s not okay, Tatsuki leaves hanging and Ichigo – Ichigo isn’t sure how to feel about that…

When he gets home, he stares at the last text he sent Rukia as if willing the blue ticks to appear to indicate that she’s read them before he thinks _fuck it,_ and sends her another message anyway:

 _I hope you’re okay_  
_and even if you’re not_  
_for whatever it’s worth_  
_I’m here for you_

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uin is pyschic, that is all.


	8. Chapter 8

_I hope you're okay_  
_and even if you're not_  
 _for whatever it's worth_  
 _I'm here for you_

It seems almost strange to read a message from him.

Not only because they spent the past three weeks graduating from emails to text messages to phone calls to video calls, but because the frequency hadn't changed with each. Right until Ichigo told her about the message he got meant for her.

When was the last time she spoke to him?

A day? Two?

Rukia stares at the notification well into the morning and is only roused from her trance-like state when Hisana accidentally bumps her when she turns over – trying to escape the sunlight trying to reach in.

She smiles despite how dry her eyes feel, how slack her face, and pets her sister-in-law's hair in a futile attempt to ease her back to slumber.

Hisana would've fallen back to sleep regardless.

Just as well, Rukia thinks, Hisana's slept enough for the both of them.

Rukia knows it was inconvenient at best, running to her honorary big sister as soon as she got home from a grueling twenty-seven-hour shift at the hospital, but frankly, Byakuya had looked terrified at the sheer prospect of having to provide emotional comfort for longer than he could cope with. He'd handled it well enough for the hour it took after Ichigo had delivered the message to her, but it had been the height of his emotional competence.

When Nanao finally arrived after a dive and dash from her summer internship at the governor's office, Byakuya all but thrust Rukia into her. He didn't even blink when Rangiku showed up for the second time this week with the box wine.

Still, all things considered, she wasn't as big of a mess as she was the first time she sought asylum from He-Who-Does-Not-Deserve-To-Be-Named.

For one, she had no intention of going back to him.

For another, lack of sleep or not, she felt safe here. Not like before when she was worried, she was overstaying her welcome, more burden than family.

Hisana cried when Rukia had told her she thought it, even for a second, and Rukia grasps the surge of affection she feels and runs her hands through Hisana's hair again.

Despite only joining them in the last day, Hisana had burrowed what was probably a permanent hole in the bed. Rangiku was spread practically starfish across it, neck craned at an uncomfortable angle on Hisana's lower back while Nanao was curled like a cat on Rukia's other side, her arm still wedged in a forgotten hug behind Rukia's neck, snoring into her ear.

As Rukia gently shut Nanao's gaping mouth, her brother's bedroom door opens, and he peeks around.

He offers a nod in lieu of actual words before he shuffles in, setting aside a tray with a pot of hot tea and four teacups on the side table.

For all intents and purposes, her brother's lacking skills at comfort aside, he's been far more accommodating than he's needed to be. Giving up his bed, his bedroom, his wife  _and_ bringing tea for however many days straight?

Granted, from the way he arranges Hisana's favorite flowers on the side of the tray, perhaps the last had simply been out of habit.

Rukia appreciates the sentiment regardless and feels herself soften in increments as Byakuya pats Rukia's head before leaning down to kiss Hisana.

Though Rukia's sister-in-law sleeps on, Byakuya's face is as close to tender as she's ever seen it, and she swallows the annoying-sibling urge to tease him about it.

Seeing her usually stoic older brother like this makes her wonder how Rukia could've ever thought she knew love before.

She shakes her head.

_I'm okay_   
_not great_   
_but okay_

Rukia stares as the typing bubble pops on his end, realizing what time it must be for Ichigo to even be awake, before:

_Do you want to talk about it?_

She huffs out something between a sigh and a mirthless laugh that Byakuya is kind enough to pretend not to notice as he moves to the closet to grab his clothes for the day.

If it were up to her, Rukia would never speak about it.

For a while, even surrounded by her loved ones like this would've sent her into a panic, and Byakuya's blatant look of concern was enough to make her hyperventilate.

She wasn't so fragile now, with time and therapy, but –

 _I know you might not want to,_ Ichigo continues,  _it's none of my business_  
 _As much as we've been talking_  
 _We are still strangers_

_You're hurting my feelings, babe_

_Rukia_

Were they really strangers if she could hear the stern tone in his words? She wondered as she tapped restlessly against the back of Ichigo's phone case, before again, he sends,

_It's not because I don't care_

_Why would you?_ She finds herself replying, and when he reads the message and doesn't respond for several minutes, the  _online_ declaration under his name implying that he's staring at the chat too, she's out of bed before she even realizes it.

Shoving her brother out of his bathroom and closing the door in his face, the call connected and then she repeats into the speaker, "You can't."

"Like hell," Ichigo retorts, "you can't tell me who to care about."

"Yes, I can!"

"Rukia -"

"We're not – we're not even dating, why would you  _care_?" she asks, almost hysterical.

"We don't have to be dating for me to care about you."

Her loud breaths echo in the bathroom, and then, "Rukia, I need you to calm down, I think…I think you're having a panic attack."

Belatedly she hears someone knock urgently at the door, but she ignores it.

"Why would you care?" she manages to choke out. "I-I'm an awful person. I pushed away my friends and lied to my family for some-some jerk who –"

"Rukia, you're not – Breathe for me alright, you're having a panic attack."

"I'm-I'm not," she stutters, even as she realizes that  _yes, yes, she is,_ and then, "I'm – I'm fine."

"Rukia…"

"Just…talk to me," she finally manages after a useless few seconds pass and she hasn't returned magically back to normal, clutching tightly to the sink for support. Even with her heart beating loudly in her ears, she thinks she catches him swallow a lump in his throat.

"I'm trying out the gym Tatsuki goes to," Ichigo decides on, "I think it's pretty pointless to get a membership since I'll be going back to Tokyo in a week. But with all the pictures Rangiku tags me in, I was kind of getting a complex about it."

She huffs a laugh, voice wobbly, "You really shouldn't, she chooses the most ridiculous ones on purpose."

"Well that's just great," it's his turn to huff, "when else am I gonna get the opportunity to become one with my couch?"

Her surprise comes out as a hiccup.

"My sister told my dad about you, as a distraction, not even because she wanted to be a pain in the ass. Not that it wasn't a pain in the ass, but still."

"Why would she do that?"

"She was meeting some boy and didn't want my dad asking questions," Ichigo declares with another huff of indignation.

"It could've been worse."

"He kicked me in the face and then after Yuzu showed him a picture of you, he accused me of using witchcraft to get you," he deadpans, more annoyed than anything else.

At that, her laugh comes more easily, and that's all she hears for several moments. Her heart rate slowing in her calm, and into it, Ichigo finally decides, "I've been worried about you."

"But you don't get anything out of it."

"No, but you're…you're my friend." He pauses. "Wait, did you just think I was worried about you because of the Inoue thing?"

"Please," Rukia snorts, "if she's still nosing around, I'll be surprised."

"Well good, because it's not," he says.

"Good," she returns, and then, they're both quiet, until eventually, "The message scared me." Ichigo doesn't reply, so she continues, "We dated for like a year, and it didn't…end well. Technically it didn't end at all."

The silence hangs heavily before she explains, "We were living together, and he got angry and threw my phone at the wall."

"Is that why your phone looks like a dog's breakfast?"

"Half and half," she admits. "I…I didn't feel safe and I wanted to call someone to fetch me except -" She'd pushed everyone away. "Anyway, I managed to leave, took the car and just drove. I made the mistake of answering his call and that's when I got distracted and almost wrapped the car around a tree…My brother was out of town so my sister-in-law came to fetch me. I hadn't heard from him since."

"Until the message."

"Until the message," she agrees.

"I guess…the fake relationship was more trouble than it was worth, huh?" Ichigo muses, apologetic.

"Not entirely," Rukia defends. "I hadn't even thought about him in ages, that's probably why I was so shook up that he'd even – anyway…I know my family's been worried about me. And having a boyfriend – It seemed like the easiest way to assure them I was doing okay, doing better."

"But?"

"No 'but', I really am doing better. I just…wasn't prepared for him to try and have a say in my life again. It's like…if you were to move halfway across the world, and then find out Inoue's your next-door neighbor."

"Why the hell would you put that out into the universe?" Ichigo complains, "Goddamnit Kuchiki."

She smirks. "See, I'm just saying."

"Speaking of 'just saying', I really didn't appreciate the ghosting stunt you pulled."

"Ghosting would imply I had no intention of messaging you back. Granted I was waiting until all that drama was sufficiently stowed away in its appropriate compartments before doing it if only you'd been patient," she smarted.

"Yeah, well," even if she couldn't see him, Rukia could tell he was rubbing the back of his neck. "I hope I've made it clear that I don't care that you have baggage to stow."

"I won't hold my breath," she admits softly, "like you said, we are technically just strangers. But I…I appreciate it, and I'll tell you next time when I need the space."

"Oh, there won't be a next time, at least not if it involves him," Ichigo declares. "You're never getting any of this asshat's messages."

Rukia sighs. "That's probably for the best."

"And Rukia?"

"Hmm?"

"Your family is your family, they'd never think you're an awful person for making a mistake."

"I know…"

He clears his throat. "Alright, well…we'll talk later then?"

At the sound of the bathroom door finally being opened, her friends and brother standing there staring at her, Rukia chews her lower lip again, embarrassment coloring her cheeks and making her voice shy, "Raincheck? I…I have some explaining to do."

There's a smirk in Ichigo's voice. "Now there's the justice I've been looking for."

She rolls her eyes despite herself. "Oh, shut up."


	9. Chapter 9

"What's the damage?"

Ichigo grimaces. "I forgot to throw out the cheese and now my fridge smells like ass." He shifted the phone from one ear to another as he reached for the offending, expired product with his dominant hand, being careful to keep it as far away from his nose as possible before tossing it unceremoniously in the bin. "How's it going at home?"

Rukia hums, and vaguely he can hear the sound of a pen clicking. "Well, Nii-sama is still sulking over the fact that I'm not actually dating you."

"Should I feel flattered?" he ventures to ask, unsurprised that her family knew.

Besides Rukia deciding to explain herself to her family, he knew for a fact her anxiety attack hadn't been on the quiet side. Ichigo was just glad that she'd realized that feeling bad about lying to her family initially wouldn't be helped by lying to them more in a bid to make them feel better. Even if their conversations were less frequent in comparison to before, at least he knew for sure that she wasn't in a rough place this time.

Her recent Instagram post said as much, and if he stared a little too long at her face squished between Nanao, and who he assumes is Hisana, that was his business.

 

"Considering he looked you up and didn't hate you, I think so," Rukia says musingly. "I thought you just had a passing interest in Shakespeare, I didn't know you ran the Literature Society in high school."

"How the hell did he -"

"Let's just say after the last guy, my brother grew an overprotective streak the size of Russia," Rukia dismisses easily. Despite himself, Ichigo can't even fault Byakuya for it.

Though he does pointedly ignore the fact that Ichigo hadn't even put that in his transcripts when he applied to Tokyo University. With some trepidation, he asks, "What else does he know about me?"

"You've had a consistent grade point average since kindergarten and a perfect attendance record since day care." In an aside that he was clearly meant to hear, she adds, "what a nerd."

"Oi!"

"You really weren't kidding about the leather jacket being for the aesthetic," Rukia says with a laugh, "you're a regular goody-goody aren't you, Strawberry-chan?"

"I practically lived in the principal's office," he retorts.

"Oh yes, the fighting," she remarks in the suspiciously airy tone. "And the fact that you were your school's head boy."

His cheeks flush. "That was -" an accident, a fluke. Tatsuki got pranked by the resident mean girls of Karakura High to get her name on the ballot, and she'd demanded he woman-up and show some solidarity as her best friend. He didn't  _actually_  think he'd win.

"Because all the other guys were too scared to campaign against you? Or that the juniors in your school wouldn't follow anyone else except their  _Ichi-niisama."_

That was exactly what Tatsuki said. Damn it.

"You're a demon," he accuses, rubbing his face with his hand and then making a gross sound as the lingering smell of the expired cheese hits him.

"Nah, just a regular asshole," Rukia sings. "Don't worry, that's the extent of what my brother knows about you."

"Why do I feel like that's a lie?"

"Because it probably is." He can practically see her shrug from the other end of the line. "I didn't ask actually. As long as he's satisfied that you're not some serial killer who stole my phone so we can meet up again and you can wear my skin, I'm good."

"…and?"

She sighs dramatically. "And I've had your phone for almost a month, Kurosaki. If you were a shitty person, I would've, at the very least, gotten a hint by now. Besides," she pauses, the pen clicking again. "You agreed to go back to campus two weeks early for your sisters, while also having them stay over at your dingy apartment so you can give them a personal tour of the university. That's like the least assholery behavior I can think of."

"My apartment is not dingy," he defends, "it's crappy, there's a difference." Particularly in terms of cleanliness. He roomed with a total slob in first year at the dorms and after such exposure, Ichigo was practically cured of any desire to make a mess, however small.

He still favored clutter over minimalism, but his place was clean, goddamn it.

Plus, after having to deal with a drunken Keigo throwing up in almost all the surfaces he could find at Ichigo's apartment, he wasn't even allowed through the door unless he was dying, and even then, Ichigo would put a tarp down first.

"The point is that you're letting two teenage girls into your space  _willingly_  for the rest of your vacation. That's not an asshole move, babe."

He exhales an embarrassed huff. "It isn't a big deal, if they want to come here next year, they should know what they're getting into."

"And you want them to choose a school where you're at too, obviously."

"Kuchiki," he began in warning, but as he was coming to find, Rukia had no mercy to spare for his dignity as she declares, "You're the softest softy, Kurosaki, admit it!"

"They have a good nursing program!" Yuzu had agreed for that alone, but like Karin, Rukia was not convinced as she hums, "Uh huh."

"Their physio-programme is just as good," Ichigo persists, though he can feel the weight of her amused judgment, and then he blurts, "And the Olympic team scouts here!"

"Wait, did you try and get Tatsuki to transfer too?" Rukia asks in surprised awe, before she berates, "Oh my god, Ichigo, leave someone behind for your dad!"

"I just didn't want to leave her after what she told me," he defends, albeit sheepishly. Tatsuki had seen right through him, of course. "Anyway, she said no." And then she punched him.

Over the line, Rukia lets out an incredulous breath. "You're worse than Byakuya-niisama."

Before he can defend himself, the sound of Yuzu and Karin returning interrupts, the two arguing good naturedly about which coffee shop is better. They were both wrong, but Ichigo would educate them soon enough.

"Hey, the girls are back."

"Oh okay, say hi for me," Rukia says, and then he hears papers being shuffled.

"Sure," Ichigo replies, "don't stay up too late."

"Yes, daddy."

"Yeah, that's not a kink I'm into," he remarks, smirking at the grossed-out expressions of the twins even as Yuzu went up on her toes to kiss his cheek before smacking his stomach as she walked past.

Rukia snickers. "I'll find something wrong with you eventually, Ichigo."

"Goodnight, Rukia."

"Bye," she laughs, and when he puts the phone down Karin is giving him the most judgemental smirk in her arsenal.

"You two are so in love its gross."

"We're not -"

"Uh huh," Karin hums, taking a loud slurp of her iced coffee.

"Rukia says 'hi', by the way," he informs, swiping a cookie from the brown paper bag, and deciding that he needed to take the girls to his favorite spot soon, particularly if Yuzu thought  _this cookie_ was good. It was an affront is what it was.

"I still can't believe you two aren't actually dating," Yuzu complains.

"It didn't stop that little monster from telling Dad," Ichigo points out, glaring pointedly at Karin who was sitting on the barstool across from him, looking unrepentant as always.

The only reason he wasn't a hundred percent pissed at her was that the date his younger sister tried to distract their father from finding out about, didn't go well, and she'd come home in a shitty mood. Ichigo figured that was punishment enough.

Then, he'd told Tatsuki, and the boy had found himself the unfortunate 'volunteer' to a street demonstration on self-defense at the mall.

"Ask her out for real, and I won't be lying," Karin retorts, wiggling her brows.

Yuzu piques, "Are we gonna get to meet her?"

"She's only coming back to Tokyo next week," Ichigo reports. "Besides, it's not like we'll hang out," he says, voice carefully neutral, "we're just gonna swap phones back."

The twins exchange a silent look before, "Oh really, is that what you think?"

"Look, at best, we're friends. At worst, we're two strangers who made do with a weird situation. I don't want to make it weird."

"Not even if she likes you too?"

"I don't -"

Yuzu crosses her arms. "Why do you insist on lying to us?"

"I'm not -"

Rukia's phone beeps with a message and Ichigo is faced with Shakesbear, a black bear on its hindlegs declaring,  _"But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?"_ , and the caption Rukia sends is,  _"I couldn't find Chapspeare, so this'll have to do. By the way, Reddit-Shakespeare, look it up, it sounds like your kind of jam."_

__

"See! That!" Karin points at him. "Who do you think you're fooling?"

Definitely not me, Ichigo thinks, catching his expression on the blacked-out screen of her phone, and the dumb grin curling his lip.

Shit.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you'd like to see the Instagram pictures, you can find me on tumblr under everything-withered under my Modern Romance tag.  
> Special thanks to modottirecap for their Shakespeare contributions.


	10. Chapter 10

 

"Rukia," he informs patiently, "people are staring at me."

"It's the scowl, it screams serial killer."

Ichigo huffs out a breath before, "Wait…you can see me?"

"Babe, I'm looking at you right now," Rukia says in amusement. Not for the first time, Rukia is thankful that Yoruichi lets her open up Black Cat. Not that she's usually happy to do it.

Her co-workers were useless until half-ten when the bar started getting busy, and Yoruichi knew it which was why Rukia had been "promoted" to opener with the benefit of not having to be there at closing.

An honor she was willing to do without when she had class half-way across campus.

This time though, with the university only opening a week and a half away from now, she'd been conned into coming back to Tokyo early – "We're fumigating," Hisana had said apologetically, though her smile was huge while Byakuya looked constipated.

Rukia knows her brother was as close to satisfied as he could ever be over Ichigo, but that didn't mean he had to like it.

The fact that he sulked about her relationship with him being fake at all had only been because he'd exerted the effort.

("He wrote speeches, Rukia-chan," Hisana conspiratorially whispered, "Byakuya was totally prepared for a Big Brother hurt-my-sister-you'll-never-see-the-light-of-day-again monologue. He had a chair picked out, the drink he was gonna be sipping from. He practiced and everything."

Rukia exhaled a sigh. "He's such a drama queen.")

It wasn't too much of a hardship to back to Tokyo early if she's being honest.

Rangiku was more than happy to be back in the club scene with time to spare for bad decisions that wouldn't affect her grades, and with Nanao managing to strong arm the administrative assistant at the university to get their schedules early, her over-planning tick was thoroughly satisfied.

Everyone was a winner, or so they insisted.

After what occurred in the last two weeks, Rukia wasn't going to begrudge her family their seemingly combined decision to show they trusted her while still being protective over her. It was far more than she deserved after all.

Subconsciously, her fingers trailed over the missing crack on the back of Ichigo's phone.

"You gonna let me in?"

Moving away from the window overlooking the street, and the small crowd gathered outside waiting to come in, she reports, "Hisagi should be opening the doors in a sec, I'll be at the bar."

Even with classes still a week off and most of the student body vacating the nearby premises until then, Black Cat was practically a landmark.

With a music venue upstairs and a dancefloor in the basement, Black Cat was busy no matter what the season or reason. Hell, even uppity white-collar, trust-fund-baby-types frequent the place, particularly the ground floor where the artwork work of the reclaimed wooden bar sat in its place of pride, something Yoruichi lamented over frequently ("I didn't ditch law school to have these losers as patrons."), though certainly not enough to turn down their money.

"Okay," he exhales, and something in his tone pulls a smile from her.

"Are you nervous, Strawberry-chan?" she teases.

"It's just weird. We've been talking for a month and I don't even know what you look like."

"You've seen pictures of me," Rukia reminds, taking the stairs down from the venue after helping the band with their soundcheck. "We've video-called."

Ichigo snorts. "That's different, not everyone looks the same as their photos. It's called working your angles."

"Ooh, I see someone's been getting educated on social media, good for you." When he only grumbles in reply, Rukia laughs. "Well, you know enough of what I look like to recognize me, I'm sure." She certainly had more selfies on her phone than Ichigo did. In fact, the number of selfies he had, she could count on one hand, and she'd definitely looked.

Sliding up behind the counter, she allows. "And if you don't, I'm sure your sisters will."

"They're not even twenty, how are they even allowed in here?" he complains, grunting when someone – Karin, probably – elbows him.

"Because no one cares about drinking ages, Ichigo," Rukia says, rolling her eyes. "If it makes you feel better, I'm working the drinks tonight anyway and I'll make sure that all they'll get is virgins."

From his end of the line, she hears someone – Karin, again – grumble, "That's not fair."

"Tell them if they come without you, I can hook them up."

Ichigo splutters. "You will not."

"Uh yeah, I will, it's called the college experience, babe. Besides, they're eighteen, if Yoruichi had a problem with it, she wouldn't have hired me at that age." And Rukia has a sneaking suspicion that if either of the twins were to ask, Yoruichi would hire them too.

The bar's proprietor had a habit of hiring people who looked like they didn't belong in places like the Black Cat.

Even if the aesthetic was heavily punk and grungy, the staff stood out like sore thumbs, clean cut and professional in their fitted black pants and white-on-black waistcoat and smart shirt ensembles ("It's called a uniform," the other owner, Urahara claimed, on one of his visits). If it weren't for Rukia's reputation as the bartender and Yoruichi's second in command, she doubted she'd be able to get any of the patrons to listen to her when she had to cut them off.

"You coming in or not?" Rukia adds when the crowd outside starts to filter in to Ichigo's continued bitching.

"Yeah, yeah…"

"I hope my phone's charged," she remarks belatedly.

"Now that I've replaced the battery, it charges just fine." He pauses. "You didn't drop my phone, did you?"

She sniffs in disdain, before lamenting, "You have such little faith in me."

Granted, the opportunities for it had been many. Rukia was just grateful that the gods saw fit to smile at her, and every fall Ichigo's phone had taken since it came into her possession led to nothing but mini-heart attacks on Rukia's part.

Still, she puts down the call with the anticipation that Ichigo would find her easily enough when he was ready and began to attend to the people gathering for their drink orders.

Before she knows it, an hour and then two passes and still no sign of Ichigo.

Though that wasn't exactly accurate.

She had seen him outside, standing between who Rukia recognized as his sisters. A scowl defining the angular cut of his jaw, face dimly lit by the bar's signage and the streetlights, while his hair stood out in messy spikes, warm like a flame.

Despite her remarks to the contrary, Rukia wasn't a hundred percent on what Ichigo looked like, the exact lift of his cheekbones or the curve of his lips. They'd talked over video-call a few times, but Rukia couldn't recall anything more than the honey golden warmth of amber in his eyes and the half-smirk half-smile curling his words.

Even in catching his face from the upstairs window, she couldn't be sure she'd recognize him in person if not for his hair, and Rukia swore she'd seen the same orange tinge in the bar, winking in and out of her vision since Black Cat opened officially for the night, but he still hadn't appeared – neither to demand her attention or to initiate their phone swap.

She didn't know if she was disappointed or not.

There were upsides to having their meeting delayed after all.

Still having an excuse to talk to him had been a big one.

In a lull in the traffic of patrons, most dispersing to listen to the band upstairs or heading to the basement to dance, she couldn't help but wonder if Ichigo had seen her and just – wasn't interested?

Rukia had seen Inoue on campus a few times, and she could admit to being envious, but – Ichigo hadn't been interested in Inoue's appearance, though if he had, he'd clearly been put off by her personality. And anyway, Rukia reminds herself stubbornly, just because they had played at being in a relationship, didn't mean he  _had_ to be interested in Rukia at all.

Still, she internally shakes her head, Ichigo would still want his phone back, right? She couldn't be  _that_ bad that he'd take one look at her and decide  _I'll just get another phone,_ right?

"Hey."

Startled from her thoughts, Rukia blinks up in surprise.

When honeyed amber eyes and a small, hesitant smile meets her, Rukia huffs out a breath, a smile of her own pulling itself from the corner of her lips.

"Took you long enough."

 


	11. Chapter 11

 

 

Ichigo uploads the picture onto Instagram, catching sight of the time at the corner of the screen before shoving Rukia's phone back into his pocket. He trades a nod of acknowledgment with a guy standing to the side, Hisagi, he'd heard Rukia call him, who was smoking, before re-entering Black Cat.

He found Rukia just as he left her, filling drink orders at the bar. The backlit wall of alcohol behind her casting shadows across her face with one movement, setting her skin aglow in the next.

He'd been surprised to find out she worked there.

Ichigo wouldn't say he frequented Black Cat, mostly he went because Chad played upstairs on some nights. But he'd been often enough. Then again, Nel was the one who usually served him when he went up to the bar, and that week before he went back to Karakura, Yoruichi had been there instead.

He couldn't say it didn't suit Rukia in a strange way though.

She made cocktails with a showy flourish and slid beers across the bar with a practiced hand.

Her smile didn't come easily, but even in the dim light, there was a softness in her eyes that paired well with the patient ear she offered to some of the patrons' shared woes. Ichigo almost forgot the lawyer veneer she put on for him in the past, though not before someone tried to skip out on paying for their drink.

Or the one occasion someone tried to get handsy with an unwilling participant.

Ichigo hadn't even the time to blink before she grabbed the offender by the scruff of his collar and dragged him half-way behind the bar from over the counter, making him go through an odd moment of déjà vu.

Yoruichi had straightened from her comfortable sprawl in front of Ichigo then, the night of the phone-swap, practically perking up as the man was pulled almost nose to nose with Rukia.

She'd been fierce and incensed, and if Ichigo was terrified and turned on, he wasn't alone.

(Though he blamed his condition on the alcohol, not that completely-sober Chad didn't raise his own brows from Ichigo's other side.)

Ichigo didn't remember what Rukia had said then, her voice only a comforting, dangerous purr in his mind.

Not unlike when she'd smirked at him from across the counter a few hours earlier.

It wasn't as busy now that it was bordering two o'clock in the morning so her voice washes as liquid smooth as it did then.

Around this time, he'd usually only be going to the bar to grab his phone and keys from the safety deposit box Yoruichi kept in the office for safe keeping, but the twins insisted they stay for the end of the performance upstairs.

On any other occasion, he'd be up there too.

Over ninety-percent of Grimmjow's personality was raging asshole, but the other ten percent was raging asshole-with-talent. Even Ichigo would admit that on nights when drinking wasn't on the table, listening to Arrancar's performance in the lounge upstairs made going to Black Cat worth the visit.

Not that drinking was  _actually_  off the table.

Rukia plied the girls with virgin cocktails and low-alcohol beer as promised, before enlisting Nel, to keep an eye on them.

And with Riruka tagging along, Ichigo had the guarantee that Grimmjow wouldn't let anyone bother the girls either.

Not that Ichigo drank anything but the single beer he was able to snag before the bar was suddenly overwhelmed with customers.

He was pretty grateful for the interruption despite the apologetic look Rukia threw his way.

He'd thought he'd be prepared to meet her in person, but he'd completely overlooked what the little crease between her brows and the quirk in her mouth would look like in the flesh. Not to mention her eyes.

What the fuck.

It had been manageable when he was, in Yuzu's words "creeping from a distance" when they'd first come in, but up close?

Initially, he thought Rukia had been wearing contacts or perhaps been using some kind of editing app to make her eyes the way it looked in her pictures, but –

He was pretty sure the picture he'd snapped outside while calming the hell down had been an attempt to have a color to compare them to.

(Not that it worked.)

His hand itched with the phantom urge to reach for her phone again to double check. A habit that started around the time they started talking in earnest, where he'd gone every day with at least a conversation that lasted hours, before the radio silence that changed it. Rukia's phone hadn't left his hand at all during that period, and even after, he'd taken to fiddling with it.

Waiting, even then, for no apparent reason, for her to light up the phone.

That thought alone made him clench his fist to stop the urge.

It was stupid to think that if he kept the phone out of sight that Rukia would forget entirely why they were meeting tonight.

He certainly hadn't.

Ichigo was still tempted to grab the twins and run, make up some excuse for he and Rukia to meet again. And again. And again.

Even if he'd only see her in person in bursts, at least then he'd still have her phone to keep talking to her.

It's a dumb idea at best, ridiculously inconsiderate at worst.

"Your Resting Murder Face is full swing tonight, I see," Yoruichi muses, and Ichigo startles to find her reclined comfortably on the couch as if she'd been there this whole time he was sulking. "Is it because of your sisters? Wait, no, then you'd be upstairs glaring at everything that looked their way. So what else could it be? Oh, I know!" Despite his annoyance, he accepts the seat she pats in invitation before the dark-skinned woman throws an arm around him and squeezes.

"I've been watching you since you got here, Kurosaki, what's the hold-up?"

"'I don't know what you're -"

"Oh please, I wasn't even subtle when I swapped your phones the last time you were here," she cajoles, "Both of you were too tired to notice of course, but I was so sure Sado was going to give me away. Guess he didn't, huh?" Her expression suddenly turns serious. "You trying to tell me I can't matchmake with the best of 'em?"

His cheeks burn. "You -"

She shrugs, careless and loose-limbed. "Rukia-chan's always so serious and focused, I thought she could use some fun, and you-you, Kurosaki, have been a Brooding McBrooderson for as long as I've known you. Can't really blame you with Inoue creeping around the way she does, but still. You deserve love too, and not the creepy kind."

"Rukia isn't…I'm not," Ichigo stutters.

"But you like her, no? You wouldn't be here agonizing yourself for hours otherwise," the woman says. "So, what's the deal, did you find out about whats-his-face? Afraid you can't take him?"

He stills, though Yoruichi rolls her eyes. "Relax, you totally could. Not that he'd have the guts to show up at all. Byakuya may be a scary lawyer, but I'm the scary former-lawyer that taught him everything he knows, I drew that line in the sand ages ago." Taking a delicate sip of her wine, she remarks, "He may have 'forgotten' Rukia when she crashed the car, but I didn't."

That's really all the reminder Ichigo needs. He may say he'd never hurt her or treat her the way she was treated in the past, but Ichigo knows she'd always carry that potential fear. It wasn't his place to just…insinuate himself into her life, how would that make him any different to her ex?

"What if Rukia isn't ready to be with someone else?"

"For…oh…oh!" Yoruichi's smile turns sly. "You  _liiiike_ her."

"You just – you're the one who said it!" he argues against his treacherous blush.

She snickers. "I was teasing! But you know, even better!"

"Yoruichi," he warns.

"Rukia will be ready when she's ready, and if you ask me, she is." Yoruichi shrugs again. "She may have gotten a complex for wanting to help people in domestic situations, but she's handled it pretty well. All I can say is, if you're not sure, ask her." She points at him with her wine glass. "Making her choices for her won't you any different from him."

Ichigo nods his understanding and is only allowed a minute of contemplation before Yoruichi shoos him away. "Well, what are you waiting for? Don't tell this whole thing has given you issues about interacting in person, it's not that hard!"

Ichigo manages to shoot a glare her way before Rukia calls him over.

He feels like he's experiencing whiplash when she follows that with a declaration, "Let's get this show on the road."

Ichigo huffs out a breath.

Now or never, huh?

"What's got you so grumpy?" Rukia poses with an arch of her brow.

"I'm not grumpy, it's just my face," he says to the mouth of the beer she'd set before him, the same one he'd ordered earlier.

"Mmhmm," she hums unconvincingly before she reaches for something under the counter and sets it before him.

At his expression, Rukia laughs. "Now you're definitely grumpy." Still, he doesn't say anything, and she pokes him tentatively, hand brushing against his wrist. "Ichigo, what's going on?"

"I…" He clears his throat, startling when he realizes how close her face is to his – eyes wide and blue and purple and – "I want to ask you out, but I don't know if that would be okay."

She blinks, and her expression does a funny thing where it's both exasperated and impossibly soft. "Why wouldn't it be?"

He opens and closes his mouth wordlessly before deciding, "It could be creepy of me. I still have your phone."

Rukia rolls her eyes, leans over the counter and – when he doesn't protest – reaches down for the pocket of his leather jacket, fishing her phone out. She sets it next to his on the counter and then arches an unimpressed brow. "Now what? Still creepy?"

"…is it?" he ventures to ask, getting her to snort a laugh.

"You're ridiculous."

"But charming enough for you to say yes?"

She feigns looking thoughtful before, "Yes to what?"

"Are you being difficult on purpose?" Her wiggling brows indicate yes, getting Ichigo to sigh dramatically. "Do you, Kuchiki Rukia, want to grab breakfast?"

Her brows furrow for the first time in confusion, lips pulled into a bemused smile. "Breakfast?"

"Breakfast," he repeats in confirmation. "I know a café that opens in like an hour if you're up for it."

"Sounds tempting," she muses, "what'll we do while we wait?"

For that, Ichigo is at a loss until he can hear the strains to one of his favorite songs from Arrancar's set from upstairs. "How do you feel about dancing?"

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, it occurs to me I can end the fic here...


	12. Chapter 12

 

 

Yuzu's verbal dissertation on the inherent differences between boys from Karakura and boys from Tokyo was interrupted by her yawn, something Ichigo seemed thankful for even if Rukia could read the immediate confliction in his expression.

Whoever thought Ichigo was a delinquent clearly never paid long enough attention to him to see more than just his scowl.

"I think that's our cue to call it a night," Rukia says, hiding her amusement of Ichigo's frown well.

"But we're not even tired," Karin argues around a grumpy face that looks very similar to Ichigo's It's-Too-Early-Why-Are-You-Calling? look.

Reluctantly, Ichigo agrees with a gruff sigh, hauling his dark-haired sister closer, her head briefly nuzzled against her brother's. "It's already five, I don't think you've ever been awake this early in ever."

She snuffles unhappily but doesn't disagree.

When Yuzu sways a little from her own sleepiness Rukia loops their arms together until their hips brush. "It's definitely time for you to get to bed," she affirms.

"But – but we just had breakfast," Yuzu whines, chin prodding Rukia's shoulder as she pouts at her.

"What, you've never had breakfast for dinner before? Oh, honey," she tuts, remembering all too vividly her first night working at Black Cat. Her first shift had been commemorated with an eight-person booth of suspiciously well-dressed barkeepers, stacks of Western pancakes and Yoruichi lording over them all, Irish coffee sloshing out of the rim of her I HEART BROOKLYN mug as she congratulated Rukia for lasting longer than Byakuya.

Rukia wasn't surprised that Ichigo knew of the American breakfast place a few blocks away from Black Cat. A lot of students frequented the joint during exam season, and with its proximity, Black Cat patrons usually became patrons of the Nine-Nine.

Though, for the staff of Black Cat, it was more a second home than anything else.

Shuhei's adopted brother, Kensei, ran the place, while their younger adopted sister, Mashiro, made a nuisance of herself there when she wasn't running the comic book store next door.

While Kensei had been amused to find that Rukia wasn't being accompanied by her co-workers at this ungodly hour, Mashiro had excitedly commandeered the twins and annoyed Ichigo by constantly referring to him as, "Berry-tan".

Clearly, he'd been there before, but probably at far normal hours than Rukia tended to visit.

Regardless, Ichigo took Mashiro's presence in stride which amused Rukia despite his attempts to be annoyed.

When he'd taken advantage of the twins' distraction with Mashiro and turned his attention to her. Rukia couldn't decide if it had been his intention at all. Though between bites of the banana split they decided to share after they finished their pancakes, she'd murmured, "You're real slick, you know that?"

"Thanks, it's all the Shakespeare I read," Ichigo informed with a smirk, entirely too devasting on a guy that was essentially having a date with his sisters as their chaperones.

In his defense, it didn't seem to occur to Ichigo that it would be weird for his sisters to tag along. Leaving them simply wasn't an option, and Rukia recalled her confusion when he'd asked her out to breakfast.

Any awkwardness she thought would arise from the twins' presence were dashed when Yuzu immediately asked if Rukia was sure she wanted to go out with their brother: "I'm not saying he isn't a catch," Yuzu said, "I'm just saying…he's kind of a dork."

"Oi!"

"There's a chance she's just too cool for you, Ichi-nii, that's just how it is," Karin waved off, to Rukia laughter.

"I'm sorry, who're the underage ones among us?" Ichigo posed.

Yuzu hummed, "Us."

"But, we're cool," Karin informed, and even if she was snoring on-and-off before startling awake with a snort and stumbling in Ichigo's hold, Rukia couldn't disagree.

Karin and Yuzu were just like Ichigo in fits and starts. While Yuzu had Ichigo's coloring and underlying sweetness, Karin had his sharper features and sharper wit. And they all clearly loved each other.

It was a different sibling relationship than Rukia had with her brother, but it was a fun thing to witness. Even if Rukia could tell from the way they trailed off mischievously during topics of conversation that they had just as much blackmail material on their beloved brother as Rukia had on hers.

That Ichigo would blush ten shades in under five seconds, and start stuttering, his bad boy veneer cracking like an egg; was something Rukia looked forward to seeing more of in person.

The bus pulled up just in time for them to get on, and after pulling the twins along and onto a pair of seats, Ichigo gently guided her to the seats behind theirs, their thighs touching as they settled in.

"Where do you get off?"

"Thirteenth," she replies, "you?"

"Same," he answers, almost bitten back, jaw suddenly clenching.

"What?"

"Nothing."

Rukia rolls her eyes, gently nudging his shoulder. "Your mouth says 'nothing' but your Resting Murder Face says 'something'."

It takes a few moments of her silent stare of judgment before Ichigo huffs and begrudgingly admits, "I realize we didn't exactly have a normal date."

"You're just now getting that, Ichigo?" she teases, and when he turns red, he makes a 'tsk' sound, something Rukia's coming to realize is only something he does when he's pissed because he's embarrassed, and she squeezes his hand. "I didn't say it was a bad thing."

Looking at the twins sitting in front of them, Karin sleeping on Yuzu's shoulder and Yuzu's head leaning against Karin's, Rukia adds, "I like your family."

"Still," he says with the same conflicted expression he had before when he realized how tired the twins were, "it isn't exactly first date material."

"No, but let's be honest, if you count since the day we started talking, this is arguably the longest first date in history," she reminds, and he huffs out a laugh.

"I guess. I just – don't want you to think that this is the kind of thing I do," Ichigo says, turning their splayed hands over so they're resting palm to palm.

"What, taking your sisters with you on dates?" Rukia asks, "Lucky for you, this isn't the only date you're gonna get."

His smile is almost heartbreakingly hopeful, and only when he breathes out, "Yeah?" does she realize how close their faces are to one another.

Rukia doesn't have much time to marvel at the whiskey gold of his eyes before Karin's irritated voice pulls them away, "Could you two make out later? The bus driver has places to be."

Clearing his throat, Ichigo tugs Rukia up by their joint hands and goes after the twins as they meander off the bus towards the general direction of what Rukia assumes is Ichigo's apartment.

"How far are you from the science buildings?"

"Just down the road, across from the Club Houses," she says, noting that they were approaching the fork in the road for her to take her usual route back to her place.

"Do you mind if we drop the girls off at mine, and then take you home?"

She shakes her head. "That's not necessary, I can get home on my own, you must be just as tired."

"I'm not letting you walk home alone in the middle of the night," Ichigo says with a frown which, while kind of him to think of her, the sun was already coming out, and the morning joggers were slowly trickling their way onto the pavements around them.

"But walking to yours and then walking to mine would require more energy. And then you'd be walking home alone and walking back from my place to yours," Rukia points out. "It's an unnecessary trip."

Before Ichigo can open his mouth to argue, Yuzu says ahead of them, "He just wants to go with you, so he can kiss you without us interrupting."

Ichigo shoots her a murderous glare before turning his head back to Rukia, back to being red faced before he realizes that she's arched her brow, that he huffs in annoyance. "Walk with us back to mine and I'll call you a cab."

"Ichigo -"

"Final offer."

She rolls her eyes. "Do I have others?"

"I carry you to mine, drop the girls off, and carry you to yours."

Rukia gives him an incredulous look to which he shrugs and points out, "I did promise to at some stage, didn't I?"

With a huff, she stalks passed him, though with their hands still connected, it doesn't exactly have the same effect.

By the time they reach Ichigo's apartment building, they're walking side by side again, and with Ichigo's keys bestowed upon the girls as he sends them inside, he waits with Rukia for the cab he called. Though since he had the foresight to call a few minutes before they reached Ichigo's place, Rukia isn't surprised that the car arrives soon after they do.

"You really didn't have to, you know," Rukia says.

"Be honest, would you have preferred to walk?"

She sighs, and he takes that as the acknowledgment he needs before he opens the backseat door for her.

"Call me when you get home?"

With a dramatic eye-roll, she nods, stepping off the curb, the door Ichigo had opened for her in the way of them getting any closer. It's a petty move that Rukia can't tell if it was Ichigo's doing in retribution to Rukia's behavior, or Rukia's petulance at having her opinions rejected.

Either way, Ichigo seems unbothered as he leans over, pressing a kiss against her cheek. The words, "Good night" curls with a small smile, and despite herself, Rukia echoes the sentiment similarly as he shuts the door, tapping lightly on the roof of the cab with his palm, an indication to set off.

Rukia blinks when the cab starts to move as if waking from some spell and turns her head to see Ichigo still standing on the curb.

Bright hair turning bronze in the breaking dawn, watching her leave.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> f you guys can overlook the end of the fake-dating trope and accept developing-relationship trope in exchange, I can keep going. The IG edits aren't going to use themselves.
> 
> (If you'd like to see them, find me on my writing tumblr-side-blog, everything-withered.)


	13. Chapter 13

 

Ichigo has decidedly mixed feelings about introducing Rukia to his sisters.

It had been a conscious decision the first time Ichigo had asked Rukia out – with the twins only in Tokyo with his prompting, it didn’t seem fair to ditch them. And considering Rukia’s past relationship, the last thing Ichigo wanted to do was push Rukia into an uncomfortable situation regardless of how much he wanted to extend their time together.

While Ichigo still didn’t want to impose his presence on Rukia until he was a hundred percent sure that she wanted him around, he hadn’t counted on the twins getting so attached to her so quickly. Though he really shouldn’t have been surprised, he’d been in the same boat.

_Are you sure Karin is interested in physiotherapy  
because I’m a hundred percent certain she’d make a kickass lawyer_

_Please tell me you’re not trying to convert her_

_She talked me into coming to this coffee shop, it seemed only fair_

Rukia was Kurosaki-bait, there was no other explanation for it.

_Boom is better_

_Right?!_

While he’d been bummed that his plan to ask Rukia out for coffee had been stolen from right under him by his own sisters, he’s thankful he doesn’t have to deal with the twins’ version of a “good coffee shop”. Ichigo had taken them to Boom, but they’d been unimpressed, and now he’s a hundred percent certain that despite their aligning taste in good company, their opinion on coffee couldn’t be trusted.

Still, it didn’t seem very fair to him that his sisters got to take Rukia out for shitty coffee before he could.

He was the one dating her, after all.

Right?

While they hadn’t done more than hold hands last time, Rukia had said that that night wasn’t the only date he was going to get.

Though, despite Yoruichi’s plan of getting Rukia to have a bit more fun, Rukia had taken advantage of her voluntary banishment from Seireitei and was already eyeballs deep in course materials for the approaching semester. Hell, the only reason she agreed to go for coffee today had been with the compromise that she’d get to finish some work while they hung out.

Not that Ichigo was currently doing that with her either which may or may not be the reason he’d been sulkily liking coffee posts on Instagram for the past thirty minutes after going through his course material hadn’t provided enough of a distraction.

_Where are you anyway?  
I thought when the girls invited me out that you were coming too?_

He pauses.

_I didn’t know I was invited?_

_You’re an idiot_  
_As awesome as your sisters are_  
_I can’t believe I’m suffering from this shitty coffee without you_

 _The coffee isn’t that bad,_ he teases, and already his grumpy mood is starting to evaporate.

She thought he was going to be there this whole time?

Rukia sends an unimpressed emoji in reply, but its too late, Ichigo is smirking and on his feet, grabbing his leather jacket and heading out, keys jingling in hand as he locked up the apartment.

 _Babe, I don’t think you’re getting how much I need a proper cappuccino,_ she complains, _I totally slacked off on my reading list during the break and playing catch-up sucks_  
_I can’t even judge your sisters for liking this place_  
_But omg_  
_The coffee is an affront_  
_I don’t think I can like your sisters after this, Ichigo_  
_They’re drinking mochas_  
_They don’t understand_

He’s too busy looking down at his phone and smirking that he doesn’t realize where he’s going until he just barely misses the sudden slosh of coffee from spilling onto him. “Shit, sorry!”

“Oh a-ano, Kurosaki-kun, I’m sorry!”

With Ichigo’s luck, he isn’t surprised that of all the people he could’ve walked into, despite successfully avoiding her most of break, it would be Inoue.

Retracting his hand from where it had shot out to support Inoue when they’d collided, Ichigo gives a wan smile. “No, no, it was my bad. Should’ve been watching where I was going. Sorry about your coffee…”

“Ah, I’m sure there’s something still left,” she waves off cheerfully, but upon peering down, her expression falls when the takeaway containers reveal two mostly empty cups. “Er…”

He rubs the back of his neck, an embarrassed flush heating his cheeks. Shit. Of course, the one time he gets distracted by his phone this happens. It was a good thing he hadn’t walked into traffic. “Shit, I’m really sorry…Uh, here, I was on my way to get some anyway, lemme just replace these.”

Ichigo almost regrets it when Inoue brightens but reminds himself that nothing’s changed from the last time Rukia had told her off. Ichigo still isn’t interested, at least not in Inoue.

Nodding gratefully, Inoue sticks to his elbow as he continues on his intended path, careful to pull the door of the coffee shop open wide enough that it doesn’t hit Inoue in the face as he enters.

With a cheerful bob, Inoue greets Ishida before mulling over her choices, and when she makes her decision. Ishida’s face is impassive, but Ichigo doesn’t miss the way his friend manages to make his glasses shine in a judgemental way even as Ichigo orders his usual, “and a cappuccino and some brownies, thanks.”

“Didn’t you have two with you?” Ichigo finds himself asking Inoue for a lack of anything to say as they stand by the counter to wait for their orders.

Inoue flushes and says, “Well actually-” just as Ichigo’s phone vibrates in his hand.

_You’re the worst  
I want a divorce_

He huffs out a snort and forgets entirely about Inoue until Ishida calls their names.

“Sorry again about running into you,” Ichigo remembers to say, making sure Ishida knows that this entire thing was an unplanned accident and not premeditated and _for the love of god, do not give me shit about this, I did not ask for this –_

Inoue waves it off. “It’s okay, Kurosaki-kun, thanks for buying me a new one.” Before he can nod, take his drinks and beat a retreat, she falls into step with him, asking, “Who’re the brownies for?”

“My sisters,” he replies, and it isn’t a lie. The brownies are better at Boom’s and that’s something him and the twins agreed on.

“Oh! They’re here?”

“Just until tomorrow.”

And not that he isn’t going to be sad to see them go, but at least this way he won’t have to compete for Rukia’s attention with them. He sincerely hopes the brownies are enough of a bribe to get the girls to ditch them for a bit.

“Oh, I should say hello!”

He nods vaguely in acknowledgment and is almost grateful that Inoue is more than happy to fill the silence Ichigo allows to lapse between them until she makes a noise of surprise as they enter another coffee shop.

The place is fairly busy despite the sub-par coffee and their shitty brownies, and he's definitely judging the fact that the girls are getting refills.

“You’re breaking my heart,” he tells them on sight as they wait for their orders.

“Look who’s finally awake,” Yuzu teases.

“Don’t sass me, I woke up to an empty apartment,” he reminds, tossing her the brown paper bag which she catches with both hands.

“We wanted to spend some time with Rukia-chan before we left, it isn’t our fault you wanted to sleep your life away,” Karin defends, her brow arching when she finally notices Inoue still hovering at his shoulder.

Yuzu, however, smiles kindly at her and greets while Karin’s gaze flits back to his before throwing a nudge over her shoulder to indicate where they’re sitting.

Gratefully, he bows out, swiping some sugar packets as he goes and leaving Inoue effectively trapped by Yuzu’s pleasantries and small talk.

Ichigo finds Rukia easily.

She’s commandeered a table to the side, closer to the windows. He can only see her in profile, but her phone is on the table, the absurd Chappy wallpaper is on display to indicate that she’d recently been fiddling with it. Not that anyone would really be able to tell.

While the surface of the table isn’t covered, there’s an abandoned drink of _something_ that’s going ignored at her side while a laptop is set up in front of her going ignored as well while she goes through a neat stack of paperwork.

Almost absentmindedly, she shoves a pair of glasses further up her nose and – Ichigo didn’t know she wore those.

Yet another thing he’d never have found out if he’d been the one taking her for shitty coffee and hangouts while she did her thing. His sisters were seriously killing him here.

Shaking his head, Ichigo slides up to the empty seat in front of her, takeaway coffee presented just beside her laptop screen.

Rukia’s so focused on her paperwork, however, that she doesn’t look up, and Ichigo snaps a picture.

He’s gratified when her phone buzzes not a minute later and she blindly reaches for it. Her glasses reflect the photo he’d taken of her, and Ichigo takes immense pleasure in seeing her eyes widen and then immediately focus on him.

Her blue eyes do nothing to hide her surprise, that she blinks the first few times, mouth a gap is adorable, even as she incredulously declares, “You didn’t.”

“You were going to divorce me over coffee,” he points out.

She makes an outrageous moan of pleasure that has his ears burning red before she scopes up the coffee with both hands. After a reverent sip and a blissful smile, she declares, “I should marry you.”

“Are you talking to me or the coffee?”

Rukia blinks innocently. “I can share if you can.”

When his sisters return, mochas in hand and what looks to be a much emptier bag of brownies to go with it, Rukia jokingly snatches it to Yuzu’s dramatic wail of indignation and Karin’s snickers. Beneath the table, her legs press against his, and later, when they head out for a movie down in Fourth, Rukia’s hand slips easily into his, and Ichigo decides that he can manage.

 


	14. Chapter 14

 

“Wait, can you repeat that, I think I heard you wrong.”

Sighing, Rukia presses her fingers into her closed eyes. “Oh, no, you heard me right.”

“You’re trying to tell us,” Nanao begins, waving her pen between herself and Rangiku, “that Ichigo hasn’t even kissed you yet?”

“Why would I make this up?”

“Because It’s ridiculous,” Rangiku deadpans.

Rukia parts her lips to – she doesn’t know. Agree? Argue? Complain? Granted, it’s something she’s been doing for the past twenty minutes since he’d dropped her off at her apartment after their lunch date and found her best friends holed up in the living room.

She and Ichigo had held hands. They talked. She fought him to pay for half their meal. He walked her back to her place. He kissed her on the cheek.

And it would’ve been sweet, still is, if she’s being honest, but it’s been over two weeks since Ichigo had officially asked her out, and there’d been nothing more.

“Maybe he’s just not attracted to me.”

It’s Nanao’s turn to look unimpressed, “You’re too smart to be this stupid.”

Rukia huffs out a breath, the strand of hair usually falling between her brows fluttering with her exhale. “Well, what else could it be?”

“It’s definitely not because he’s not attracted to you, are you kidding me? That boy is so dumb over you it's insane,” Rangiku says. “He posts more pictures of you than he does of himself.”

He’d even posted one of her on his couch a few days after the twins went back to Karakura to finish off the school year, which would’ve seemed like the prime opportunity to kiss if privacy was the issue. Instead, they’d gotten caught up in Ichigo’s teasing over Rukia’s growing obsession with juice boxes, and the difference between a crappy apartment and a dingy one (“I resent that, my place is _clean_ , Kuchiki.”).

“That’s not a big deal,” Rukia waves off.

Before the increasing number of posts he made, his Instagram was mostly group shots, and even then, he wasn’t always in them.

Recently, he’d started posting more artistic photos, and she’d attempted to tease him about them until he’d gotten one of her and was so stupidly sweet about it that she’d stared at it, unresponsive for almost ten straight minutes.

(That the caption he’d chosen was some love song hadn’t helped the downward spiral of realizing how utterly gone for him she was.)

That Ichigo had flushed, gotten embarrassed and then snarked about it, the whole cycle of his pleased bashfulness turned double time when she’d kissed him on the cheek, and the only reason she hadn’t aimed for his lips had been due to the habit he’d unwittingly drawn in her for them.

Rangiku snaps her fingers. “He’s a virgin.”

“That makes even less sense,” Nanao informs, forcing Rukia to resist the urge to just give up on life and brain herself on the table.

In all honesty, it hadn’t bothered her that they were taking things slow. Well, slow enough. Skipping ahead to meeting his family and spending time with them without Ichigo around when they hadn’t even gotten to anything more than hand holding was arguably more intimate than kissing but –

She’d called Hisana to wish her and Byakuya a happy anniversary that morning which Rukia had paired with an Instagram post in commemoration, as you do.

Everything had been going normally until they’d had to say goodbye, and Hisana had chirped, “Give Ichigo a kiss for me!” and Rukia had been startled to realize that _uhm, he hasn’t even gotten a kiss from me yet._

And it’s ridiculous and weird that it hadn’t even crossed her mind before.

Ichigo didn’t blink twice at having to share his personal space despite his perpetual scowl. His long legs ensured they were always touching under the table, and his hand automatically found hers whenever they walked.

He’d thrown his arm around her when they watched that movie with the twins, and it hadn’t even occurred to her how weird it was that he didn’t try and kiss her then, on reflection.

Hell, they took the train back from the movies that day and Ichigo had a hand on her thigh the whole way back, and he still didn’t do more than press his lips against her cheek.

“I don’t get it,” Rukia decides, purposely shaking her head, and her friends echo their dissatisfaction.

“Do you think…” Nanao begins but then snaps her jaw closed.

“What?”

She clears her throat. “Maybe he’s just taking it slow?”

“Like a glacier,” Rangiku says with a snort. “I’m feeling super mislead about his leather-jacket-scowly-man get-up,” the blonde adds, wagging a finger at Rukia. “I wanted to hear crazy hot sex stories from you, young lady. You know, the dangerous kind. The caught doing it in public kind. The ended up in hospital kind.”

“Have you met Ichigo?” Rukia asks, raising a brow which – okay, that side of him was still very much a possibility. She’d felt his arm around her before, hadn’t missed his muscles flexing through his thin t-shirt when he removed his jacket. The times she jokingly shoved him, Rukia hadn’t missed the firm resistance of his chest, nor the way the cords of his neck pulled tight when he tilted his head back in a dramatic eye roll.

But Ichigo was also a statistics major, for God’s sake. He went off on a tangent about probabilities and conceptional analysis and some weird graphs for over thirty minutes once. He liked photographs of bridges and sunsets. He read Shakespeare for fun. His little sisters had him wrapped around their fingers. He let Rukia – five foot in all – boss him around and get into debates with her in public that occasionally led to them getting kicked out.

Sure, he was a little emotionally constipated, easily embarrassed and an idiot at heart, but he was protective and considerate and –

“Oooh, she’s thinking about it,” Rangiku stage-whispers to Nanao, getting Rukia to redden.

“Stop it, I’m not,” she says, “I just…I really like him, and realizing that he might not like me –”

“He likes you,” her friends declare in unison.

“Romantically though!”

Rangiku huffs. “We’ve seen you guys together if it isn’t romantic it’s something a helluvalot better.”

“I don’t know…I just don’t get why he wouldn’t want to. I mean, with…” she trailed, and at the ensuing guilty silence, Rukia's eyes narrow. “What did you two do?”

“We didn’t -”

“Did you tell Ichigo -”

“We just told him to be careful, that’s all,” Nanao soothes. “We didn’t know he’d take it this far!”

“In our defense, we gave you guys like a week before you’d take a roll in the hay. We didn’t think it’d take almost a month for you to even kiss!”

Rukia huffs out a breath, rubbing her forehead with her open palm. “I cannot believe this, what did you say to him? Is that why he’s –”

“Being considerate? Respecting your boundaries? Taking the time to get you comfortable and get to know you? Rukia, it’s what you deserve, hell, it’s the bare minimum,” Nanao interrupts. “We didn’t tell Ichigo anything about He-Who-Does-Not-Deserve-To-Be-Named, that’s your story to tell, not ours.”

“Then why…”

“He asked,” Rangiku says with a shrug. “It was just after the panic attack you had. He…Ichigo felt responsible since he relayed the message in the first place, and then he brought up how you freaked out when he told you he cared about you, and well….”

“Oh my god,” she groans.

“I think,” Nanao adds quietly, “I think he’s waiting on you to make a move? I’m sure he’s asked everyone by now what they think.”

Rukia scowls. “Except me.”

“But you’re a tough cookie,” Rangiku reminds. “It would be just like you to say you’re okay when you’re not.”

“Which leaves us what? Ten years later and maybe we hug sometimes?” Rukia asks flatly.

“You talk to him. You know, like the adults you both are,” Nanao informs primly.

Rangiku follows that up with, “And you know, maybe Ichigo is just the slow type? I mean, he seems pretty shy, maybe it’s just that? Are you seriously telling me that Kuchiki Don’t-Need-A-Man Rukia doesn’t have the lady-balls to make the first move?”

Nanao shoots her an annoyed look. “Are you seriously trying to tell Rukia that she should seduce her own boyfriend?”

“Noooo….” Rangiku winks at Rukia. “But it does keep the romance alive.”

Rukia only manages to open her mouth in disbelief before a notification lights up her phone, and like a Pavolvian response, both Rangiku and Nanao prepare to leave.

By the time she looks away from the screen and they’re opening the door, Ichigo’s standing in the doorway.

Nanao shoots her a silent look while Rangiku bids them both to, “Have fun, make safe choices!”

 


	15. Chapter 15

 

Ichigo blinks as Rangiku and Nanao disappear down the hallway, trading harsh whispers, and he’s so confused at the sight that he isn’t paying attention to anything else until he’s forcibly pulled into Rukia’s apartment, his weight leaned against the door as Rukia’s frame keeps him there – hand bunched with his shirt.

“You’re the most infuriating person I’ve ever met, Kurosaki,” she practically snarls.  

Nose to nose, the blue flickering in lighter and darker shades like waves in her eyes distract him from how startled he is at all that he’s in this position. He only stares back at her, and the snarl unravels until her expression is blank.

“Rukia -”

“It’s been practically a month; did you know that?”

“I -”

“A month, and I didn’t notice until -” She cuts herself off, huffing out an exasperated breath. “Were you ever going to say anything?” He doesn’t reply which is just as well because she seems determined to do all the talking, an almost hysterical giggle leaving her lips as she informs, “I thought you didn’t like me – like you realized after all this time we’ve spent talking and hanging out that you just weren’t attracted to me and –“ Again, that giggle. “And it turns out you’re just being a gentleman?”

“Rukia…”

The closest thing he can describe it to is a cloud getting in the way of the moon as she withdraws, serious and unhappy, “Unless they’re wrong and you really aren’t -”

He reaches forward before she can. Not a difficult task considering how close they still are to one another. Her skin is soft and pale against his palm, delicate bone-structure framed by her feather soft, night-black hair as he cradles her head, his thumb soothing against her cheek. “Why would you even say that?”

She has no answer for him, though Ichigo is sure she has one.

Rukia has an answer for everything, a large part of why he finds talking to her so addictive. Regardless of the topic, mundane or insane, her opinion was guaranteed, and she’d never been afraid to share it. He didn’t want her to stop now.

When her brows furrow, gaze narrowing at nothing and lips thinning, he guides her closer until she’s pressed against his chest.

With her standing between his legs, it’s easy to envelop her, even if she doesn’t exactly return his impromptu hug.

His breath gently ruffles her hair as he speaks, “What’s going on?”

“You didn’t ask me,” she finally decides, tone decidedly petulant. “You asked everyone else, but not me.”

“I did ask you,” he reminds patiently.

“And you didn’t believe me.”

“I did, I just didn’t believe me.”

She makes a confused noise against his chest, her hands flexing with the material of his shirt, though she makes no attempt to move away. “I don’t understand.”

“Rukia,” he began, half in a sigh. “I’m pretty sure I could fall in love with you.”

“Don’t sound so excited by the prospect,” she snorts, and if they weren’t pressed so close together, he wouldn’t have felt the jump in her ribcage rise up to meet his. So, he ignores her snark and presses a kiss against her forehead.

“It isn’t fair to you.”

“Because I had a jerk for an ex-boyfriend?” she demands, finally pulling away, though only enough so she can glare up at him.

And Ichigo should be over it, the way she refuses to take anyone’s shit, but he’s always so caught up in the sharpness of her scowl, the fury in her eyes; how willing she is to fight for herself.  “That – he hurt me, yes. But if anything, I was more hurt by myself, what I did, what I allowed. How I let myself be fooled and manipulated and -”

“And it has nothing to do with that,” he interjects not unkindly.

Her brows furrow again though this time her expression is blatantly confused.

“I don’t how to love you yet,” he says, “I don’t know if I’m overstepping my boundaries; if I’m making you uncomfortable; if I’m being too clingy. I don’t know those things yet.” And he’d tried to figure it out. He’d tried to take stock of her reactions so he could know what she liked, what she didn’t. It’d have been easy if it didn’t make him want to be around her all the time.

“How is this not about my previous relationship?” Rukia eventually asks.

“Because even without it, I’d still have done things this way.” He’d been sure it was the right move, it had felt good just to get to know her, it had felt right to hold her hand, and kiss her cheek, and spend time with her just _being_ and –

“Ichigo,” she began slowly, “am I your first girlfriend?”

It’s easy to escape her gaze, but the curl of her lip – caught between her teeth to suppress her smile – is entirely too distracting, and before he knows it, she’s laughing. “Where exactly were you going to find those answers, Ichigo?”

He doesn’t have much time to be annoyed or embarrassed by the question or her apparent amusement with the situation before her arms steal around his neck, her lips pressing against his cheek.

“You’re ridiculous,” Rukia informs, and even with the accusation, his arms around her keep her buoyed. They’re nose to nose when she says, “All you had to do was ask. You can’t just… _know_ how to love someone. There’s always a risk that you’ll never get it a hundred percent right, but you try and that’s more important that knowing all the right answers.”

“I know that,” he says, somewhat grumpily.

“Oh really?” Her brows quirk. “My question stands, Kurosaki, where exactly were you going to find the answers to the Proper Love and Care of Kuchiki Rukia?”

His cheeks burn. “I have a chart.”

“You have a… _Oh my god_.”

“I’m a Statics major,” he tries to defend. Ichigo had always done things to win, that’s why he’s so good at poker. “My brain automatically works with probabilities. Granted it’s harder working without quantifiable variables but I just used previous interactions and other data to compare and -”

“Ichigo, you’re the biggest dork I’ve ever met,” Rukia decrees, though she’s smiling as she says it. “Why am I dating you?”

And because Ichigo’s more than willing to take his own shovel and keep digging, he points out, “Technically we aren’t officially dating yet.”

“Oh, _technically_ ,” Rukia repeats, amusement clear. “And when did you chart say that was viable?”

“Like a month from now,” he admits.

She huffs out a breath, getting him to add, “The fact that any of this has managed to happen considering the circumstances, I should be given a pass for trying to make sure the outcome was good.”

“Alright fine, you get points for putting in the effort, but your evidence doesn’t stand. You realize you could’ve just _asked._ ”

“Like you’re asking?”

“Uh yes, you fool, this is how I decided to ask.”

“By pushing me up against a door?” he trails disbelievingly, and with their faces still close to one another, it's easy to catch the blush she tries to hide.

“Well, I…may have gotten advice to seduce you.”

“And,” he prompts, bumping their foreheads together. “How’s that looking?”

Blinking widely, Rukia tentatively asks, “I don’t know, is it working?”

Ichigo huffs out a laugh and tilts his head a little, lips brushing against the skin just beneath the outer corner of her eye. Though this gets her to sigh, she rights the slight angle of his head, fingers still running through his hair before she leans in.

They meet again and again, and each kiss is chaste and closed-mouthed, her lips soft against his, their movements unhurried, yet still by the time Rukia pulls away, their breathing is loud in his ears.

“So,” Rukia trails, “your class got canceled, huh?”

“Uh yeah,” Ichigo answers, his voice strangely hoarse. “I didn’t interrupt anything by coming over, did I?” He hadn’t intended to just show up at her place, they had, after all, already spent the afternoon together after her delict lecture.

Ichigo had only realized once he got to her apartment complex that she might have plans already and was completely prepared for her response to be a “No, you can’t study here”, even if without her knowledge, he was already waiting outside her door. It wasn’t like he was going to start knocking anyway. But it had become a bit of a habit to hang out whenever their schedules allowed.

With a full course load for the both of them and hardly any overlapping classes – with his lectures split between the science block and engineering building, and hers on the law campus, they wouldn’t get to spend any time together otherwise. Though that begged the question of whether Rukia _wanted_ to be together and –

Rukia pecks his lips again, distracting him, before she scolds, “I can hear you thinking. Stop it and just ask me.”

“If I were to ask you to be my girlfriend, would you say yes?”

“I would,” she decides, not missing a beat. “Are you asking?”

“Not yet.”

She rolls her eyes. “Ichigo.”

Before she can lecture him and tease him some more, he lifts her easily off the floor – not a difficult task considering he was holding most of her weight anyway – and walks her to the couch, informing, “I have plans -”

“- and charts,” she adds.

“Exactly,” he nods, firm and insistent in the face of her teasing.

“So, what that means is…”

“It means I’m wooing the fuck out of you, and you’re just going to have to wait until then.”

Rukia opens her mouth to seemingly object, before he interjects, “And to answer your previous question, yes, you’re the first girl I've ever wanted to seriously date, and I’m making this count.”

Again, Rukia’s eyes roll, more fond than annoyed, even as she complains, “I can’t believe I find this romantic.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tbh, same.


	16. Chapter 16

 

Rukia doesn’t so much as wake up as she realizes she’s no longer asleep. With a groan, she rubs her eyes and rolls over, flipping her pillow over her head in an attempt to hide from the sun peeking through her window.

Going back to sleep is futile, and she knows it, but her morning routine wouldn’t be completed without it.

Blindly, she stretches out to reach for her phone, and feeling the familiar outline of a crack along the back cover, she tugs it towards her. Her face scrunches up in preparation for the overly bright screen, an expression that turns more severe when she discovers that its only half past nine. And it’s Sunday.

Not that the day really made a difference.

Her law degree ensured she was kept busy regardless, her study group had met up briefly to divide cases for an upcoming test yesterday before she’d finally been able to escape to actually _have_ a weekend.

Normally, she’d still be out like a light at this hour; unmoving and unresponsive as she required in order to face another hectic week.  But alas. While Rangiku was more than happy to drag her out on the monthly bar hop, and Nanao too buried in her own degree to realize how long it even was since they talked outside of tagging each other in memes, Ichigo was an entirely different story.

She groans again.

It wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy his presence, on the contrary, she’d never felt more noticed and cared for in so long she actually had nothing to compare it to.

While her jerk of an ex was more than willing to be attached to her by the hip to a suffocating degree, Ichigo knew where the boundaries were and happily complied with the space she needed.

Once, she’d complained that her study group was more headache than help and had jokingly messaged him to _Save me now before I stab them all._ Ichigo had actually showed up, but had no intention to stay, only to drop off some flowers because _You told me sunflowers looked happy_ , before kissing her goodbye and reminding her that, “You can’t annoy me if you’re in jail for mass murder.”

 

And Ichigo had been patient with her while her class prep was going on, and she hadn’t spent dedicated time with him in ages, but god, she was just so tired.

And frankly, now that she was awake, hungry too. The thought of having to get up at all though, makes her bones feel heavy likely because she hadn’t immediately decided to become one with her couch after her study group like she’d usually do.

Instead, Ichigo had showed up with flowers (after she’d told him last night that she was meeting with her insufferable study group again before their date) before coaxing her to the farmer’s market as planned.

 

They’d relaxed on the grass, listened to live music and stuffed their faces with the variety of food available at the stalls. The day ended late thanks to the perfect weather and the sunset that Ichigo insisted they should see, only on  the condition that he carry her the rest of the way back.

 

Unfortunately, they were detoured by an advertisement for a gallery opening, a photography collection that Ichigo seemed interested in, and Rukia insisted they go.

 

They’d rerouted to Ichigo’s apartment to grab extra layers, since the gallery opening wasn’t for an hour yet, before Rukia finally begged off anymore external stimulation and Ichigo was happy to walk her home.

 

Though, Rukia was the one to insist on Ichigo coming up for a bit, and that “ _bit”_ turned into a couple of hours too until they’d both fallen asleep in Rukia’s bed watching some movie on her laptop.

He’d woken up at some stage though, had set aside the laptop, and tried to leave, but Rukia couldn’t remember him actually leaving so maybe –

At the knock on her door, her groan is louder before vaguely, she hears it open, followed by the soft sound of footsteps approaching. Peeking over the edge of her bed, she spots his bare toes, and sighs, making a face up at him.

 “I can’t believe you’re a morning person.”

“Says who,” Ichigo snorts, messing up her hair further with one hand and reaching over to help untangle her from her cocoon. “You’re a pain in the ass in the morning, I’m doing this purely for selfish purposes.”

Rukia doesn’t dignify that with an answer, though she perks up when she catches the smell of fresh bread coming from just outside her door.

“You made food?”

“Bought food,” he corrects, which makes sense considering he’s dressed albeit in the rumpled clothes from yesterday sans his sweater because – yeah, she’s still wearing it. “It’s in the living room.” Which is essentially just a couch, but since Rukia’ place is bigger than Ichigo’s, that’s what he insists on calling it.  “Hurry up, the bread was just out of the oven.”

Sighing dramatically, Rukia accepts his hands to pull her out of bed, sluggishly hanging off of him like a limpet as he walks them out the room.

“You’re so lazy,” Ichigo complains.

“I am, but this is who you’ve chosen to be attached to, you’re just gonna have to deal with it,” she says, unrepentant before she blinks at the duvet that’s in a heap on one end of the couch. “Did you sleep here last night?”

“Well you wouldn’t let me go home so -”

“No, I meant _here_ ,” she points out, throwing him a confused look. “Did I kick you out of the bed or something?”

“No,” his face looks decidedly redder, though Rukia can’t decide if it’s because he’s embarrassed or lying to her. “But we’re not – we haven’t -”

With a dramatic sigh, she forces him to look her and declares, “Ichigo, if I don’t want you to do something, trust me, you’ll know.”

“So, next time -”

“Next time we Netflix and Chill, I will not be opposed to sharing a bed with you.”

His cheeks have gone ruddy as he stutters, “We didn’t -”

She pats his cheek anyway with a smirk and a hum, perking up even more as she sees the wooden board set up with croissants.  “Are those strawberries? And the jam from that farmer’s market? Oh my god.”

His ears are still pink beneath his mess of orange hair, softened by the scattered sunlight in the room, as he huffs. “You wouldn’t shut up about it yesterday, so I just thought -”

She groans again.  “You’re perfect, why are you perfect?”

Ichigo does that embarrassed-huff thing again. “Yeah, yeah – just, don’t knock over breakfast. I left the coffee in the kitchen.”

“Uh-uh, wait,” Rukia makes grabby hands at him and though he feigns an impatient look, he leans down willingly to plant a kiss on her lips. “Thank you!”

He exhales a smile, still manging to look shy before he heads into the small kitchen to the sound of the snap of her camera app.

“That better be of breakfast and not my ass,” he grumbles.

“You think so highly of yourself,” she teases, sending off the one picture to the group chat between her, Nanao and Rangiku, while posting the other picture on Instagram.

 

“Did you sleep in jeans too?” Rukia asks as he settles in beside her on the couch, the denim brushing against her bare leg.

Ichigo studiously avoids looking at her. “No. That’s why I slept on the couch.”

“Oh Cherie,” she cooes, giggling outright as he gets more embarrassed and as a result more awkward which again, she ignores in favour of smacking a kiss against his cheek, and any complaints he’d have feigned are swallowed up by his smile.

They eat in comfortable silence, their positions only changing so that their backs are leaned against the armrests on the opposite ends of the couch, though their legs are tangled over one another’s. Across from her, he cradles his coffee, watching her back as she licks the spoon of any reminisces of strawberry jam.

Once she realizes that Ichigo’s got a bit of an oral fixation, Rukia feels a smile curl against her mouth, something he only seems to realize once she sets the spoon, and the remains of their breakfast aside.

The air is strangely charged, and for a moment Ichigo seems both paralyzed and enthralled by it, watching with that same intense focus when she crawls over his legs and into his lap.

Resolved to just watching her; his gaze trailing deliberately up her collarbone and throat and the juncture of her jaw with darkening whiskey eyes, any shyness Rukia felt about this was promptly smothered.

Easily, Ichigo tugs her closer so her legs bracket him, just as her fingers echo the same route over his skin as his eyes had taken: collarbone, throat, jaw until she tilts his head to meet her lips and it’s different to all the times they’ve kissed before.

Rukia respected Ichigo’s need to go slow and be cautious, but she also knew that she’d been wanting to kiss him like this since she’d seen him.

The bad boy persona may just be all appearances, but in Rangiku’s words, Ichigo was a fucking beefcake.

His hands were large and firm against her back, keeping her pressed against his chest, the other sliding tentatively against her (admittedly short) sleep shorts until she scraps her nails against his scalp, and he squeezes her ass in retaliation. Something he seemed to agonize over considering the groan that vibrates past his lips as he pulls away from her mouth, lips brushing against her neck instead until he’s mouthing at it.

Her breathing is startled and erratic as her other hand searches for purchase against his shirt, grasping at the bulge of his bicep, feeling it flex beneath her palm as his hand moves from her back to her thigh, feather light and so so warm as he kneads her flesh.

Without his lips against hers, the moans that leave her ricochets until she’s gasping, dropping her hips just enough to make contact with the firm length protruding from the cradle of his hips, and then he’s hissing between his teeth.

“Fuck, Rukia -!”

Her shortened nails scrap against the heated skin beneath his shirt, the muscles in his shoulders flexing in kind, unsure whether she’s doing it to soothe him or egg him on.

Her body seems to make the decision for her, and against him, she moves like a wave while he bears down against her, resolve being whittled away with her every push and pull, murmuring against him incoherently, “Yes, like that, Ichigo -”

“Fuck, fuck, are you…are you sure?”

“If you stop, I’ll kill you.”

His response is to grab her by her thighs and change their positions, the sudden weight of him so good that she’s gasping.

Still clothed and rutting against each other like horny teenagers, he comes a part, even as his hips keep moving against hers, and he asks in a breathless murmur, “Show me?”

Against his thigh, she chases the friction and against her collarbone he watches her move with so much intent that she’s stupid with it. It isn’t until he takes the initiative to press his hand between her legs, and through the layers of her cumbersome shorts and soaked underwear, and strokes her on every undulation, with his breath hot against her skin, that she follows after.

The room is quiet and soft from their breathing, their combined warmth putting up a formidable fight against the cool morning air.

When he withdraws his hand, it’s only to squeeze her hip in tedium to the way he hides his face against her chest.

“I can see why you’re a morning person now,” she hums.

“Rukia,” he groans, decidedly embarrassed even as she laughs against his hair, her hand running soothingly up and down his back.

“What? We didn’t even have to take anything off,” she teases.

 “You’ll be the death of me, woman.”

Sighing dramatically, “But, oh, what a death!” He sighs back something like affection, a sound he muffles against her lips until he’s licking into her mouth, same as her.

Her amusement at the whole thing makes her chest bubble with a laugh that bursts when he teasingly bites the skin of her neck.

“Hey, Rukia?” he murmurs.

“Hmm?”

“Can I date you?”

“I thought you already were?” Rukia teases. “Is the wooing part over already?”

“No,” he says, “this just…felt right to do now, unless you want a whole thing.” He waves off the last bit as if to visibly encompass the degree of the occasion in a careless way, though not to suggest he’d find the effort of doing so troublesome, more like to downplay that the effort is an effort at all.

“That depends,” Rukia decides, and when he rearranges himself on the couch, so his weight isn’t all on her, she rests her head on his bicep and peers up at him. “Are you still gonna be ridiculously adorable?” His cheeks stain red once more, and she declares, “I’ll take that as a yes.”

It isn’t until he grimaces that Rukia’s smile wavers. “What’s wrong?”

Eyes going wide, he shakes his head. “No, nothing – just uh, my clothes are kind of ruined.”

Peeking down his body, she could just barely see the slightly darker patch of denim, along with the top button of his jeans that had popped open during their earlier activity, the teeth of his zipper half done to show off the black label of his boxer briefs. She runs her hand over his chest in apology.

“Well…I mean, what are you planning to do today?”

“A shower would be great,” Ichigo says belatedly, his nose running down the arch of her cheek. “But other than that, I don’t do much on a Sunday.”

“What a coincidence, me neither…”

Ichigo huffs out a laugh. “Well, if you don’t mind the company, I can come back?"

“Actual Netflix and Chill?”

His expression is hilarious and it’s her turn to laugh. “I’m sorry, did I blow your mind?”

Ichigo makes that annoyed grumpy face again, the arm he’d thrown around her waist finding purchase as he digs in, her laughter turning to squeals as she tries to wiggle away from him, though Rukia is thankfully spared the torture for much longer when they’re interrupted by a knock on the door.

“Do you want to get that?”

“You’re the one that’s dressed though,” Rukia points out, still out of breath.

With much grumbling when the knocking continues, Ichigo crawls over her, stopping to smack his lips against hers before finally getting up.

“Wait,” she called out, laughing, “it’s on your shirt too!”

Looking down, dismayed, apparently the only solution to the problem Ichigo could come up with was to strip his shirt off entirely, holding it just so over his front so to hide the wet stain. He looked at her through his lashes. “Better?”

Hair rucked up, jeans slung just low enough to show off his hipbones and shirtless to boot, Rukia could practically hear Rangiku wolf whistle now.

Wiggling her brows, Rukia deemed him acceptable before he had to turn to the door when the knocking still hadn’t stopped. For all the annoyance on his face, the definite swagger in his walk only made Rukia giggle, and she thought nothing could stop her good humour until Inoue appeared in the open doorway.

At first, Inoue looks determined, her cell-phone in hand, the screen displaying a picture Rukia’s sure is from Ichigo’s Instagram. Though, to the orange-haired woman’s credit, she looks completely thrown to find Ichigo in the state he’s in – clearly debauched and not looking like he gives a shit.

Rukia covers her mouth with a smile.

Crossing his arms, Ichigo gruffly asks, “Can we help you?”

“Uh…Kurosaki-kun, I didn’t know you were -” She flushes darkly. “I just – I wanted to talk to Kuchiki-san.”

Whatever good mood Ichigo was in, gives way to suspicion. “I wasn’t aware you’d have anything to discuss with my girlfriend.”

If it was possible, Inoue turns redder, the embarrassment coming off of her in waves. “I…” she swallows hard, glancing between them, clearly reconsidering, until Ichigo speaks again, this time to Rukia, “I can get out of your hair?”

She shrugs. “Sure, I’ll tell you later anyway.”

He smirks at her wink and makes for the bathroom.

“You don’t have clothes here,” Rukia reminds in some confusion.

Ichigo shrugs, throwing over his shoulder. “I figured I won’t need them later anyway.” And if he turns the corner, just out of Inoue’s line of sight for Rukia to see him undo his jeans enough that all Rukia sees is his boxer briefs hugging his ass, that’s Rukia’s business.

When she finally manages to shake her head and return to the task at hand, Inoue is gone and the hallway outside is empty.

As Rukia shuts the door, she absently grabs her phone still on the couch, a recent tag notification from Instagram on the screen.

The picture that she recognizes had been the one that was displayed on Inoue’s phone when she’d come in, stares back at her – as the Ichigo and Rukia in the photo grin at each other – the caption reading, _the kind of happy she deserves._

__

“Ichigo,” she calls out, and from beneath the spray of water, he shouts back, “What?”

“I really need you not to be a gentleman right now because I’m coming in.”

“Wait, what? – Rukia – _oh…”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yeah...the end!

**Author's Note:**

> [Click here if you want to find out more about my work](https://everything-withered.tumblr.com/)


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